Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

[cahn]

Come join us in this crazy Frederick the Great fandom and learn more about all these crazy associated people, like the star-crossed and heartbreaking romance between Maria Theresia's daughter Maria Christina and her daughter-in-law Isabella, wow.

OK, so, there are FOURTEEN characters nominated:
Anna Karolina Orzelska (Frederician RPF)
Elisabeth Christine von Preußen | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia (Frederician RPF)
Francesco Algarotti (Frederician RPF)
François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire (Frederician RPF)
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great (Frederician RPF)
Hans Hermann Von Katte (Frederician RPF)
Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor (Frederician RPF)
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria (Frederician RPF)
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (Frederician RPF)
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (Frederician RPF)
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (Frederician RPF)
Stanisław August Poniatowski (Frederician RPF)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758) (Frederician RPF)
Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia (Frederician RPF)

This means some fourth person kindly nominated Algarotti and -- I think? -- Stanislaw August Poniatowski! YAY! Thank you fourth person! Come be our friend! :D Yuletide is so great!

I am definitely requesting Maria Theresia, Wilhelmine, and Fritz (Put them in a room together. Shake. How big is the explosion?), and thinking about Elisabeth Christine, but maybe not this year.

I am also declaring this post another Frederician post, as the last one was getting out of hand. I think I'll still use that one as the overall index to these, though, to keep all the links in one place.

(seriously, every time I think the wild stories are done there is ANOTHER one)

Comments

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, here goes my 5 things WIP!

- Alternate universe #1 where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

Definitely the sappiest one: Fritz and Katte (and Keith, although so far all of his scenes have been cut, sigh) make it to England. Fritz marries his cousin Amelia as part of his grand plan to get England to back his triumphal return to Prussia. Of course, not all is sunny, since Fritz is worrying about SD and Wilhelmine*.

* Oh, speaking of, I ran across the direct discourse of FW's threats, which I had quoted a paraphrase of recently: "Your mother would have suffered enormously, because I would naturally have suspected her of having knowledge of the affair; your sister I would have locked up for life in a place where neither sun nor moon would have shone; I would have marched into Hanover with my army and put everything to the torch and sword, I might have had to sacrifice my own life and country. See that [would have been] the fruit of your Godless and unthinking behaviour."

Anyway, because this is a sappy fic, Fritz is tolerably friendly with Amelia and consummates the marriage, but he's still a gay boy in a political marriage he'd rather not be in, so he goes running back to Katte on his wedding night, and they read poetry aloud about how they're actually mostly all-intents-and-purposes married to each other, and it's lovely. <3

- Alternate universe #2 where everyone is at least incrementally more happy.

The Count Rothenburg fic! Not that Count Rothenburg, selenak, his less well known French cousin the envoy to Prussia. (And yes, that was confusing to me at first.)

Rothenburg in canon:
- Hated FW and also tried to get the hell away from him for several years.
- "14-yo Fritz for King! FW for insane asylum patient!"
- Fritz spied on FW for Rothenburg, using an intermediary to avoid suspicion.
- Very cultured/educated/sophisticated guy.
- Wilhelmine says Katte was an intimate of Rothenburg, and credits Katte's unusual-for-Prussia sophistication to Rothenburg's influence.
- In 1730, Fritz may have been trying to escape to Rothenburg's estate on the border of France.
- May or may not have married late in life (my sources contradict each other), but definitely died childless.

So this AU practically writes itself. Fritz and Katte make it to Rothenburg's estate, Keith joins them from England, Fritz is disinherited, Rothenburg plays surrogate father to exiled Fritz. Canonically, Rothenburg dies "très riche," childless, and possibly never having been married, in 1735, and his wealth gets divided between his two sisters. My little-details question is about what and how much he can legally leave to Fritz. Since no one seems to know (I miss the days when that community was super active), will have to handwave so that the answer is LOTS. (I mean, if no one knows, no one can call me on it!)

Playing with the idea of giving Rothenburg homosexual inclinations. There are many reasons one might die unmarried!--if he even did, some of my sources give the name, pedigree, and date of marriage of his wife, which is extremely specific for someone who in other sources is stated never to have married--but he's kind of a stand-in for my other never-married wishful thinking surrogate dad candidate for Fritz, namely Eugene of Savoy. At any rate, he's going to be a sexually open-minded French noble and he's going to ship my ship and make sure my boys are happy.

- Alternate universe #3 where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

Katte talks Fritz into toughing it out at home instead of trying to escape, promises to help as much as possible, convinces him it'll be okay. To keep FW from getting suspicious about their relationship, they decide to play up the "Katte as good example" angle. Katte starts giving him one-on-one lessons in things like improving his horsemanship and shooting and fencing, to impress FW, while making these things that Fritz has to do anyway more bearable. It's not a great solution, but it's better than nothing.

And as Fritz's skills start improving (because he's marginally more willing to put in the effort), Katte starts dropping hints that Fritz does great with positive reinforcement. He can do this because his dad is one of FW's BFFs. That's actually how we got here in the first place.

Katte: Hey, Dad, can I be in charge of the Crown Prince's lessons, since I'm such an exemplary officer and he likes me?
Katte senior: Well, I certainly have no objection to my son being in a position of influence with our future monarch. I'll ask.
FW: Anyone who can get my wretched offspring to cooperate even a little bit has my thumbs up.
Fritz: I don't have to like it! I will complain constantly!
Katte: Remember, we don't want him sending me away like Keith.
Fritz: ...
Fritz: Okay, but you have to let me talk about my new favorite author Voltaire the WHOLE time. And as much touching as we can get away with.
Katte: Win-win? I don't see anything not to like here. :D

- Alternate universe #4 where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

This is the darkest one, and the increment is very small. This is the one where Seckendorf or someone convinces FW that keeping Katte alive means a permanent hostage for Fritz's good behavior. So any time Fritz tries to get away with something, Katte's whipped or starved or otherwise punished. And he's kept in solitary confinement at Küstrin with the threat of execution always hovering over his head like Damocles' sword, just stayed indefinitely at the pleasure of the King. Then FW dies and Fritz pardons Katte within 60 seconds of becoming king. They haven't seen each other in 10 years (Katte hasn't seen anyone except his rather sympathetic guards and chaplain.)

This one kind of wants to develop into a *thing*, but for my "5 Things" fic I think it'll just be 4 scenes: Fritz and Katte's POVs in November 1730, when Katte isn't killed, and Fritz and Katte's POVs in May 1740, when Fritz is preparing to free Katte but can't let on because what if FW gets better (the guy canonically was on his deathbed numerous times in the last 20 years of his life and kept getting better) and decides he'd better kill the prisoner while he still can? So Fritz does the best he can for Katte without Katte understanding why his treatment is suddenly better in surreptitious ways.

But in any case, this fic seems to want to be about the post-1740 period, when Katte's freed and he and Fritz have to work out their PTSD together and rebuild a relationship after 10 years of being separated yet constantly linked by trauma. So if I ever flesh it out, it'll be about that, not about the whipping boy decade (small blessings).

- Alternate universe #5 where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

TBD. Stay tuned!

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

Not that Count Rothenburg, selenak, his less well known French cousin the envoy to Prussia. (And yes, that was confusing to me at first.)

Given that better-known-Rothenburg was the one who gifted Fritz with Biche and Fritz said about his death "I lost a second Caesarion", I was confused, yes.

(BTW the English ambassador was less impressed by him and wrote about him when alive: "Count R. is lethally hated by everyone here; he specializes in the belittlement and slander of others." Thereby delivering another example of how everyone sees something else.)

Is there one AU in which FW actually goes through with his retirement plan (in which he also would have abdicated in Fritz' favour) and lives the religious hermit life in the country side, the one that Wilhelmine wrote about? (See, if Shakespeare actually would have had a shot at getting read at this point in Prussia I would have suspected someone of having told FW about King Lear about why this is not a good idea and if he thinks that his wife and daughters will actually play housekeepers for him in such a situation once he doesn't have absolute royal power over them anymore while Fritz does...) Since he had that idea for some months before he and Fritz visited Dresden it must have been when Fritz was 15 or 16? Since, however, Shakespeare was anathema to the lovers of French literature and not yet discovered by the German reading crowd when Fritz was a teen, FW must have reconsidered for other reasons.

Being an evil person sometimes, I also wonder about an AU in which Katte survives... but where FW actually does follow Philip II's example, though not Peter the Great's, has his son killed (though not tortured to death a la Peter). Maybe Katte survives because he got out of Berlin in time, or maybe FW needs to soothe his conscience about the son-killing by not pressing for a death sentence for Katte but accepts the original military tribunal sentence of imprisonment. But Fritz dies, and Katte survives. What would happen?

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, Rothenburg was tricky to research, not least because 1) more famous cousin, 2) no Wikipedia page that I could find on English, German, *or* French Wikipedia (oh, look, Polish Wikipedia has a one-line stub, haha), 3) only searchable by the French spelling of his name, whereas my Fritz bios used the German spelling, smh. Once I figured (3) out, the doors of Google were unlocked.

But then it was perfect, because I found just enough information to get inspired, but not so much that I can't write him as a basically original character, instead of having to do a ton of research to try to stay true to canon, or at least know when I'm departing for creative reasons. (This is exactly what I did in my last fandom too: took the characters who had 0-2 lines of dialogue in the novels, fleshed them out into half a million words of fanfic.)

Is there one AU in which FW actually goes through with his retirement plan (in which he also would have abdicated in Fritz' favour)

I hadn't thought of that one! Interesting idea. One of the main contenders was "FW *doesn't* rise from his deathbed during one of his many illnesses, and Fritz inherits young (enough that Katte's still alive)." But this one is interesting. I have to imagine step 1 is: Fritz summons Wilhelmine to court for Very Important Reasons and just never lets her go again.

Being an evil person sometimes

Caaaahn! Selena's being mean to my characters! Tell her she's being mean. :PPP

No, seriously, I am an evil person who killed off my main character in my last AU in an already tragic PTSD- and death-riddled fandom (Hunger Games) in which said character had already canonically died in a somewhat different way, but so far, all my instincts in this fandom are to put Fritz and Katte in a room together with a flute and pat them and never let them be separated again.

Katte may say that if he had a thousand lives, he would give them all up for Fritz, but I say if I have a thousand AUs in this fandom, I will give them all to reuniting Fritz/Katte. <3 (And unlike my last fandom, it still won't make an iota of difference to their reality. </3 )

Maybe Katte survives because he got out of Berlin in time, or maybe FW needs to soothe his conscience about the son-killing by not pressing for a death sentence for Katte but accepts the original military tribunal sentence of imprisonment.

Well. I'm going to say if FW has Fritz executed and has the power to have Katte executed, then he has to have Katte executed just to justify the decision to kill Fritz, i.e., be consistent about the severity of the offense. But, if we go with the story (which one of my sources says is apocryphal and not based on any contemporary documentary evidence) about FW drawing his sword and threatening to run Fritz through with it the first time he saw Fritz after the escape attempt (cahn, one of FW's officers is said to have stepped in front of Fritz and said, "Kill me, Your Majesty, but please spare your son")...IF FW impulsively kills Fritz and then regrets it, then, yeah, I can see him being forced to back down and not kill everyone else.

But in this AU where Katte knows Fritz is dead, I say Katte gets the hell out of Berlin asap. Maybe IRL he delayed for reasons besides or in addition to not wanting to abandon Fritz, like hoping for milder consequences if he just didn't actually desert, but once the King has killed Fritz...well, idk, maybe those are the circumstances under which you don't do anything as risky as trying to flee, because look what happened to the last guy who tried to flee, and that was his own son. But maybe those are the circumstances under which you have nothing to gain by staying in the power of the bloodthirsty maniac running the country when your prince is gone, and you have nothing to lose by deserting now, and you might gain your life.

Could go either way, I guess. It's really hard for me to get inside Katte's head on that last day of freedom when he had his chance and didn't take it in time. Probably because there were so many reasons to stay and so many reasons to go that being in his head wouldn't have cleared matters up much: his head was probably whirling. ;)

But Fritz dies, and Katte survives. What would happen?

OMG. Who's incrementally more happy in this AU? Katte's family and friends? Not by much (see: successful desertion or imprisonment). Fritz might argue that he is, poor thing. :( Katte, idk.

As a side note, I actually kind of wonder, speaking of family and friends, what Hans Heinrich (and for that matter, the rest of the family) thought about his son's decision to accompany Fritz, since "please don't kill him" is such a low bar it doesn't give us much to go on. I mean, there's a long continuum from "OMG how could you disgrace the family like that; okay, execution is a bit much, but I raised you better than that!" to "Privately, I think the King is a terrible father* but you should never ever defy or even speak ill of the King, because he's the King and obedience comes first," to "You should definitely be punished, but at least I can still hold my head up among my fellow officers, because everyone knows you did it for love and pity, not anything worse like cowardice or venality," to "I and everyone I know are kind of silently WTFing at the way FW treats his son, so there were really no good choices there."

* After all, Hans Heinrich let (and by "let" I mean "paid for") *his* son attend university, study French, play the flute, paint, do the Grand Tour, etc., and apparently was okay with him not joining the military. So while he may have been a strict 18th century military dad, he seems to have been a socially conforming 18th century sane strict military dad, not a batshit "my contemporaries' values are all effeminate, burn ALL the books, smash ALL the flutes" Spartan dad. (ETA: Of course, some of Katte's activities he may have been sneaking around to do, such painting and the flute, but not, like, university or the Grand Tour. Those are harder to hide, and harder to do without at least some family member helping you out financially. Not to say it was necessarily Dad, but I'm not seeing any reason to believe otherwise.)

Now, here's an interesting avenue for Katte to survive in addition to the ones mentioned: that incriminating letter doesn't make it to FW, and Katte's never implicated one way or another. So he just silently lives with the irrational survivor's guilt of knowing he helped Fritz to his death, while trying to go about his normal life, keeping his secret bottled up, grieving, and not having the emotional catharsis of knowing he suffered as a result too (like I said, irrational). Even exile with Keith would give him a sense of "Well, we were all in it together, it failed, and we all paid the price."

:'-(

SO ANYWAY. I will be doing a completely different AU. Also, the series is titled "Five Ways Fritz and Katte Cheated Fate," not "Five Ways Fate Curb-Stomped Them Differently." :P (Yes, there's the "...and one way they didn't" format, which I have considered and so far always rejected.)

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

One more angle on the "Fritz dies, Katte survives" idea: what does Wilhelmine do? Because the relationship with her brother was so absolutely quintessential to her life that I think one would be justified to let her do something radically different in such an AU. Such as running away herself. England (or at least Hannover) would have been an obvious destination; she was probably too much of a realist to expect being regarded as marriage material by the cousins under those circumstances (i.e. without a a dowery, and without being male, the crown prince and thus a useful political tool), but still, it was reasonable to expect them to take her in and give her a place at court.

Now, her pride wouldn't have dealt well with being the poor relation (especially at a court where she'd been raised to believe she'd be the future Queen), so she might not have remained long, plus maybe she deals with the terrible loss of Fritz by feeling vengeful. And FW prides himself on being the Emperor's loyal subject. So Wilhelmine decides to go to Vienna and make her case, accusing her father of point blank murder. There's medieval legal precedent here demanding a public hearing at last. Again, she's probably aware that this will not end in the Emperor doing something to actually punish her father, but the public embarassment as the Prussian royal family's dirty laundry is shown in front of the world? In great detail? In a world where dignity and representation means so very much? This is her avenging her brother.

And who should be another witness but a Prussian officer in exile, one Hans Herrmann von Katte.

Also, while she's in Vienna: of course she meets the two arch duchesses. Befriending ensues!

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[cahn]

There's medieval legal precedent here demanding a public hearing at last. Again, she's probably aware that this will not end in the Emperor doing something to actually punish her father, but the public embarassment as the Prussian royal family's dirty laundry is shown in front of the world? In great detail? In a world where dignity and representation means so very much? This is her avenging her brother.

And who should be another witness but a Prussian officer in exile, one Hans Herrmann von Katte.

I am finding just reading this synopsis of an AU that never happened extraordinarily cathartic. GO WILHELMINE GO.

Also, while she's in Vienna: of course she meets the two arch duchesses. Befriending ensues!

I WANT THIS.

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

I thought you might. :) The medieval legal precedent involves a royal daughter accusing her father's murderer in front of the assembled princes. Wilhelmine, as a princess of two electorate princely houses (Brandenburg and Hannover) and a direct blood relation to the dead victim, himself a prince of said houses, would be entitled to bring her suit in front of the Emperor, who has to hear her out in full. (And in public.) And we know from the memoirs she had a way with words if she wanted to. And the theatrical instinct of an opera composer. Imagine all the anachronistic Verdi soundtrack you want. (He wrote some mighty vengeance tunes, after all!)

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Omg, you know I hate killing off either of my pairing, but I LOOVE Wilhelmine avenging her brother. Maybe she and the Prussian officer can be platonic friends and bond in their grief?

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

Absolutely. In fact, since in this AU Katte was never found out because that letter didn't get into the wrong hands, maybe once he hears Fritz is dead he does the one thing he can be sure Fritz would want him to do, get not just himself but also Fritz' beloved sister away from FW? During the first part of the trip (Berlin - Hannover) he and Wilhelmine are still numb and shellshocked, but once in Hannover when the adrenaline from the escape has gone and the reality of Fritz' death really has time to sink in, that's when they start talking (and shouting, and crying), especially since Wilhelmine otherwise has to play nice with the Hannover cousins (or their representatives, depending who is there). Once she hits upon her vengeance idea and heads towards Vienna, she asks him to come along again (a noble woman travelling alone still needs an escort, and whether she admits it out loud or not, he's the last thing she has of her brother - and vice versa, I guess).

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[cahn]

heeeeee. I am also an evil person? So if Fritz is killed... is there any kind of anti-FW movement that gets started? (Guessing no, as Philip II and Peter the Great seem to have been OK after killing their sons.)

And then his brother becomes King when FW dies. (Does FW's abuse extend even more to his younger brothers if he doesn't have Fritz to kick around any more?) Then what happens?

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Differences: Philip II may not have killed his son IRL, just locked up the crazy batshit guy. Peter, well, 1) Russia ~1700 is a little bit more anything-goes (Ivan the Terrible had earlier killed his son in a fit of rage), 2) Peter had more support for his decision and actually got a death sentence out of the court.

FW's court martial, as you may remember, was divided between death and life imprisonment for Katte (meaning the lighter of the two sentences won by law), and after he told them to vote again and come back with a death sentence, they came back with the exact same decision they'd made before, infuriating him and forcing him to pronounce the death sentence on this own. And even the ones who voted for death said, "Please consider how this will affect your son," which may have been the wrong thing to say. :/ FW: "How can I make this affect my son the MOST? I know, I'll have him watch, and tell everyone involved to make sure his heart is broken!"

(Fritz's heart: *is broken*)

And the court martial point-blank refused to have anything to do with judging Fritz.

Would there have been an actual overthrow? FW had been worried about one for a long time; that's partly why he overreacted so badly to the escape attempt, especially when he discovered that foreign powers were involved. I think I've read that earlier that year there was an actual treasonous plot (not directly involving Fritz) that FW had uncovered and he punished the offenders.

Would Charles VI and the Imperial Diet have had something to say about FW if he'd had his son killed? Presumably. Would they have *done* anything to the point of supporting an overthrow? Eh. Charles had tried to protect Peter's son too, but sure as hell wasn't invading Russia over it. That said, the Charles-FW dynamic is very different than the Charles-Peter dynamic, especially with FW and his Imperial leanings.

One problem for anyone supporting an overthrow is that the next candidate after Fritz is killed is only 8 years old. (I mean, that could be an appeal, if you feel like you can become the new power behind the throne, but it's a different kettle of fish than supporting 14-18-yo Fritz as new king.)

I suspect it makes a big difference if FW loses his temper and runs Fritz through with a sword on the spot, then is publicly penitent afterward, vs. if he issues death sentences to everyone.

Here's an evil AU for you: Katte escapes; therefore Fritz is killed. There are people who think having another, more acceptable target made FW more likely to get his thirst for blood out of his system so that he came down on the side of a pardon for Fritz. Pure speculation, and I personally think there were too many other factors for FW to decide in cold blood have his son killed even without Katte to punish, but AUs are for people making different decisions than they did in real life!

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Totally forgot to address the second part. I don't know the FW-AW dynamic in enough detail to have an informed opinion, but from what little I know, AW was pretty willing to go along with what Dad wanted: wear uniforms, play with soldiers, not sneak off and do all the forbidden things, etc.

You know how I think I had more conflicts with my parents than my siblings did, because my unshakeably strong sense of self and belief that my parents were stupid meant that I was willing to stand and die by my convictions, instead of playing along? I think Fritz might have had more conflict with FW than his siblings not only because he was the heir (which is related to why, say, Wilhelmine didn't get the focus of Dad's abuse), but because he and FW shared that terrier aspect to their personalities.

Whereas AW might have been like, "Yeah, sure, Dad, whatever you say. Sounds great," after Fritz was dead, and FW might have had some relief (mixed up with all the guilt and defensiveness) that things had worked out in the end for the benefit of Prussia. And maybe even (because humans are great at rationalizing, watch Fritz rationalize everything ever) convinced himself that Divine Providence had a hand in Fritz's death, thus absolving FW. How convenient!

Btw, I have read (I need a Turkish particle for this) that after the escape attempt, FW said no more education for AW, because French and philosophy had led Fritz astray.

Me: *facepalm*

Then, of course, when Fritz came to the throne, he was like, "Okay, younger bros, you're all getting educations now, which I will generously micromanage! Just think how lucky you are now that I'm in charge. In *my* day, we didn't get educations, and if we did, we had to see to it ourselves, no help from the monarch. I'm sure as adults, you'll all proceed to demonstrate your undying gratitude toward me for overseeing your education like this."

"Our Insane Family: The Next Generation" ensues.

Speaking of insane families and generations, I was looking at selenak's YT letter, and this line about SD jumped out at me: "emotionally abusive, too, especially towards her daughter. She also had had a traumatic childhood herself"

*sings, Lion King-style*: The ciiiiiircle, the ciiiiiircle of abuse!

/o\

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

Yeah, no kidding. When I read about SD the Older trying to run away with her lover, getting locked up for life with the lover killed and SD the younger growing up being told her mother was an evil slut who deserted her station and kids, I thought: makes perfect sense of SD the Prussian Queen‘s behavior. (Including conspiring with her kids against FW in the sense of pushing the English marriage projects etc., but NOT by, say, doing the Catherine II approach of locking him up and getting him killed. ) And her pointedly NOT visiting her imprisoned mother when she could have later is definitely the same woman who curses Wilhelmine as a betrayer for giving in to FW‘s marriage demands.

Re: AW-FW relationship, both real and AU, I don‘t know too much about it in rl, either, beyond that it was supposed to be good (for FW). AW comes across as affable, wanting to be liked by his family and with a sense of humor in the letters of his which are in the Wilhelmilne‘s Travelling Adventures collection, but then relations to your rarely seen older sister and her husband aren‘t comparable to father/son relationships, especially if the father is FW. Two this to consider, btw:

1.) I‘m not sure FW would have been able to rationalize his killing Fritz after actually doing so. His brand of Protestantism came with a heave sense of guilt Iremember, that retirement plan came because a preacher had convinced him he wasn‘t Christian and good enough), and without the possibility a Catholic ruler would have had of confession/penance/absolution. And a guilty FW believing himself cursed might have had a complete mental breakdown. Whether he‘d still continued ruling, with his ministers covering for him, or wether Grumpkow & Seckendorff would have tried to go for a regency with of course themselves, not SD as regents until AW had grown up, I don‘t know.

2.) In rl, AW‘s reaction when Fritz put the blame of losing the early 7 years war battles on him, shamed and humiliated him in public tells me that he wouldn‘t have been able to survive the full FW treatment for oldest sons, either. As you say, FW and Fritz both were terriers, so Fritz was scarred by the abuse, but survived. AW, otoh, comes across as a spaniel to me.

Lastly, one bit from Fontane‘s Neuruppin entry in the „Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg“ I forgot to mention shows FW actually considerate of Fritz‘ feelings. There was a gallow on which army deserters were hung at Neuruppin, Fontane quotes an FW letter/order for said gallow to be removed and all traces to be erased before the Crown Prince entered Neuruppin, so there was no chance of him seeing it. I‘m just letting that stand there.

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

And a guilty FW believing himself cursed might have had a complete mental breakdown.

Oh, that's an extremely likely possibility. It's also not mutually exclusive with later rationalization. Humans are extreeeeemely good at rationalization, often while madly repressing or even expressing contrary feelings. I agree, he might have stopped at "cursed" and never recovered. But he might not have.

Also, the FW we know is the FW who *didn't* kill his son. The FW who did is at least slightly OOC vis-à-vis the canonical FW, someone who was able to rationalize doing it in the first place, if only for a split second. And if there was no Katte to make an example of, maybe he rationalizes that he has to make an example of *someone*, or everyone in the army will think desertion pays. (Remember, his rationale for executing Katte was that he'd never be able to trust the Gens d'Armes again.)

Besides, he did ask the court martial for a verdict, and got mad when they didn't want to judge the Crown Prince. What if they had come back with a death sentence, especially in the absence of a successfully escaped Katte?

I'm just letting that stand there.

*nod* It's not inconsistent with his eventually letting Fritz have some creature comforts and flute music at Küstrin. He seemed to want to walk that line between breaking Fritz's will and breaking his mind, especially once he decided to keep him on as heir.

he wouldn‘t have been able to survive the full FW treatment for oldest sons

You may have a point here. On the one hand, I'm reasonably sure that even promoted-to-heir spaniel AW would have gotten better treatment than "I will die on every single hill" terrier Fritz, just because he wouldn't have gotten locked in that unrelenting vicious cycle with FW. On the other, I doubt FW could have consistently managed to never abuse even his spaniel son, and AW might have snapped.

Then again, Fritz had a lot of resentment against AW to begin with, and maybe FW would have been more easily appeased? I'm not entirely sure.

A moment of sympathy for the abuser here: this is Fritz talking about his shortcomings shortly after he's been grieving AW, regretting the falling out and that he didn't make up, berating himself for his temper, and recounting his not-always-successful efforts to control it (combined with a hell of a lot of blaming of everyone except himself): "If they had sought to raise me in my youth rather than humiliate me, believe me, my dear sir, that I should be worthier than I am; but they neglected my education; I had to undertake it myself, and I have only accomplished it in part, and always with some remembrance of the humiliations I had suffered."

Now, it's not an excuse, and this kind of partial self-awareness is not uncommon on the part of abusers in therapy who make very little progress toward actually changing, but at the same time, it's also almost certainly true as far as it goes, because that's how the cycle of abuse works. (Where we differ is that my opinion is that if you're aware that you have a problem that harms other people, you need to make more strenuous efforts to come up with new methods to protect those people, instead of stopping at "Well, I try self-control, and it doesn't always work, but I'll keep trying.")

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[cahn]

AW, otoh, comes across as a spaniel to me.

Hee -- this does seem consistent with everything you've told me!

It makes sense to me that AW might not have been able to cope with being the oldest son (had he been born first instead of Fritz), but I wonder if stepping into that position, with a penitent FW, and not having terrier tendencies, might actually work not terribly for him (as in, he could roll with FW's weirdness instead of digging in his heels).

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Haha, I was just glancing at selenak's tv series post again when reccing it, and saw, "'Bring back Katte!' would still be the overwhelming cry."

Look, this trope is written in the stars, nothing I can do. 1000 5 ways "Katte/Fritz 4ever" happens, and no ways that it doesn't. :-P Bring back Katte! (Oh, man, my 15-yo self cannot believe my 36-yo self's priorities and vice versa. "Forget Katte! Why can't Fritz have Bohemia and Saxony too? Write *that* AU!")

Also, "Fritz/Voltaire snark-and-sex stories would outstrip Fritz/Fredersdorff h/c and curtain fic in number, though neither would ever gain the popularity of Fritz/Katte," hahaha, this is so true. I'm now imagining curtain fic, that's hilarious. So many opportunities! Rheinsberg and Sanssouci being the big two, of course.

I'm kind of torn on whether to hope this happens. On the one hand, I used to look in vain for Thorin fic, and now it's everywhere. On the other hand, the film got Thorin terribly wrong, and also as a result of the film, all fic is now Thorin/Bilbo and very wrong. At least Fritz/Katte (and to a lesser extent, Fritz/Voltaire, Fritz/Fredersdorf) would be the right ship, but who knows what the show and fanon would actually do with it. (The show might do what I'm told that recent musical did and ship Katte with Wilhelmine, like really, wtf. At least we could be sure fandom would quickly straighten that out, but I'm sure it would have a lasting impact on the kind of fic produced, namely that there would be good chunks of Wilhelmine-hating, love triangles, and incestuous threesomes.)

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

I have to google that recent musical, but I'm not really surprised. I very dimly recall a tv miniseries when I was a teenager which gave Fritz a heartrendering romance with Dorothea Ritter and shipped Wilhelmine/Katte as the secondary couple. (Googling, I see that it was called Der Thronfolger, broadcast in 1980 and was vaguely based on Jochen Klepper's Der Vater, though I don't recall either relationship from Der Vater (the late 1930s FW novel I had mentioned eons ago). RL basis for this: for Fritz/Dorothea, that FW certainly suspected poor Dorothea (a theologian's daughter who was very musical and had sung with Fritz a few times, plus they'd taken some strolls together, entirely supervised, I might add, they were never alone together) of having had sex with his son, had her arrested and had her publically whipped as a whore for that reason ( German wiki as opposed to English wiki has the exact order - "...dem Hoff Rath Klinte, daß er Morgen die in arrest allhier einsitzende Cantors Tochter soll auspeitschen laßen, und soll dieselbe alßdann ewig auf Spandow in das Spinnhauß gebracht werden, erstlich soll dieselbe Vor dem Rathhause gepeitscht werden, hernach vor des Vaters Hause, und dann auff allen Ecken der Stadt", which is Rokoko German for "tell Hofrat Klinte that tomorrow he's to have the imprisoned Cantor's daughter whipped and then put her forever in the women's work house; firstly she shall be whipped in front of the city hall, afterwards in front of her father's house, and then in all public squares of the town". Oh, and he had her examined by doctors who discovered that she was virgo intacta.

(FW: never let it be said that he wasn't awful to his son's (suspected) het interests, too. Poor Dorothea. She might not have been beheaded in front of Fritz, but public whippings and three years in Spandau - she was released in 1733 after her father petitioned for mercy - for the crime of having taken a few strolls and having made music with a man was terrible. And just for added kicks, German wiki mentions Voltaire made fun of her. He checked her out when visiting Berlin and described her to his readers as "a tall woman, thin, resembling a sybil, and not blessed with the kind of looks that would have made her deserve a whipping for a crown prince's sake".)


Meanwhile, the entire justification for anyone assuming Wilhelmine/Katte I can see is that Katte did have a double portrait of both siblings, but against that is Wilhelmine's stated distrust and antipathy and, well, Katte's everything else. Not that reality ever stopped any shippers. Or tv executive. Der Thronfolger certainly had a great cast for 1980, which I see included Jan Niklas as Katte (he'd go on to play young Peter the Great in the Peter the Great miniseries (where Maximilian Schell was older Peter), Maria Schell as Sophia Dorothea and Günter Strack as FW. But it faded out of public consciousness; I don't think I've seen it repeated in the last few decades.

Anyway, for our fictional five-seasons-of-Fritz, you know some incest shipping would happen these days regardless, even if the producers scrupulously adher to the non existence of any het romance for Katte. Because I haven't seen a fandom with two close siblings which let that opportunity pass, orientation be damned.

Speaking of fictional incest, though, how about this trivia:

Voltaire: writes a tragedy "Semiramis" which is supposed to be staged celebrating the birth of the French Dauphin's first son (that would be unfortunate future Louis XVI whose birth gets celebrated here, I suppose).

Voltaire's rival Crebillon: has already written a tragedy "Semiramis" some years ago and has just secured the post of censor and Royal Librarian

Crebillon: So let me get this straight: in your version, Semiramis has killed her husband, and is in love with a guy who turns out to be her long-lost son, and who kills her, thus avenging his dad. The last words are "tremble, oh royals, for fate's justice awaits! And you're considering this suitable to celebrate our future king's birth why? *forbids production, authorizes parody just to add saltÜ

Voltaire: See if I care. I have now a prominent fanboy. Dear fanboy of mine, here's the ideal play to conmemorate the dead of the War of Austrian Succession, how about producing it? Have a copy.

Fritz: Thanks for the copy, great genius. No production right now, but I've handed it over to my sister who is also a fan.

Wilhelmine: Love the play. I'm writing an opera version!

The Margrave: Um. Haven't you already written this opera Argenore where the heroine discoveres the man she loves is really her brother? I don't want to curb your artistic endeavours, especially when they distract you from me cheating on you, but I'm spotting a trend here.

Wilhelmine: Look, Argenore was me venting, and if the heroine and hero hadn't been secretly brother and sister the titular King couldn't have sung the final aria about how he tried his best to destroy both his son and daughter and deserves to die. Semiramis is different, the plot is entirely by Voltaire and doesn't reflect on rl at all. Now can I have the money to produce my opera version?

Voltaire: Love that you're writing an opera version, your highness, but meanwhile, who is staging my original play? Luckily, I also have a fangirl on the throne.

Catherine: If you think I'm staging a play about a female ruler who killed her late husband and gets killed by her son, you've got another think coming, Maitre.

Voltaire: Back to the Comedie Francaise it is, then.

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, poor Doris Ritter. She really deserved better, and she definitely deserved to have come up in our anecdotes much earlier in these discussions. My bad. :'-(

Oh, Voltaire. But him being an asshole is to be expected. MacDonogh, in 1999, writes, "It is highly doubtful that she in any way merited the savage treatment meted out to her after Frederick’s flight." I mean...what exactly do you think would have merited that savage treatment, author? Murder? If you mean "she didn't do the things FW thought she did," say so. This is at best a very infelicitous phrasing; at worst, you and I have radically different values.

you know some incest shipping would happen these days regardless

Oh, of course, and I'm fine with it being a niche interest. I just don't want it being one of the major ways fandom has to deal with a no-homo-ing canon. (Suspect it'd still be a minority approach, but probably more common than if canon left out the Wilhelmine/Katte pairing.)

Meanwhile, the entire justification for anyone assuming Wilhelmine/Katte I can see is that Katte did have a double portrait of both siblings, but against that is Wilhelmine's stated distrust and antipathy and, well, Katte's everything else. Not that reality ever stopped any shippers.

Very true. The real reason here is "heteronormativity."

I've often wondered about that double portrait. Platonic admiration on Katte's part? Attraction? (She and Fritz had enough in common, especially at that age, that if you like one, you might well end up liking the other, platonically or romantically.) Trying to make nice to her because she's so important in Fritz's life? Seriously worried about her ability to turn Fritz away from him?

Love the Voltaire anecdote, thanks for sharing! I am now through the first ~18 months of Fritz and Algarotti knowing each other, and will try to put together a summary soon that's informative, if not entertaining. (And entertaining if the muses are with me; otherwise, you get copy-pasta from a dissertation.)

Catherine: Lol!

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[selenak]

Oh, Voltaire. But him being an asshole is to be expected.

Well, naturally. At my conference, I talked with Mr. Pleschinski some more, the Fritz/Voltaire correspondance translator mentioned below, and he totally ships them, not least because "They so thoroughly deserve each other".

MacDonogh, in 1999, writes, "It is highly doubtful that she in any way merited the savage treatment meted out to her after Frederick’s flight." I mean...what exactly do you think would have merited that savage treatment, author? Murder? If you mean "she didn't do the things FW thought she did," say so. This is at best a very infelicitous phrasing; at worst, you and I have radically different values.

No kidding. Public whippings and three years harsh imprisonment are barbaric by any standard. I just hope Doris Ritter was happy with her spice trader later and not too bothered by voyeuristic tourists like Voltaire showing up.

Now, YouTube turns out to actually have Der Thronfolger, albeit sans English subtitles, 60 minutes per episode, two episodes uploaded into one folder (so YouTube has two, read: four parts). I checked out the first sixty minutes, seeing it for the first time since 1980, and it turns out to be actually pretty good, heteronormativity aside. (Which of course is a big aside. Peter Keith does not exist, for example.) It starts immediately post Katte's execution, with the Küstrin pastor writing to FW the "for God's sake, relent on your son" letter, while the camera pans to a devastated, silent Fritz lying there, and then we get the entire rest of the show in flashback, so to speak, going back to child Fritz. The childhood section ends at about 13 minutes and does a good job getting across Hohenzollern (and Hannover) dysfunctionality. It goes thusly:

Little Fritz: flawlessly declaims a section from the gospels about Jesus subjecting himself to the well of his father

FW: *is pleased with his son, for the last time in a loooong while*

Morning breakfeast chez Hohenzollern: *marital warfare ensues, SD and FW use Fritz and Wilhelmine as weapons against each other, the argument also is exposition for why SD wants those British marriages so much*

FW dines with army chaps and male courtiers and a visibly ever more uncomfortable Fritz, extolling on manly virtues

George I: *state visits*
SD: This is my daughter, Dad, the future queen of England!
G1: A bit strong for her age.
SD: But Dad, you know I used to have the tiniest waist in Europe! (Notes to self: make Wilhelmine lose weight.)
G1: you want to be queen of England, girl?
W: Yes.
G1: Despite not having met my no good grandson, offspring of my lousy son?
W: Yes.
G1: Hm. And you, Fritz, what do you want from your future?
F: I want to be a philosopher.
G1: Well, that would be a first in both our families, eh, son-in-law?

FW: *has been seething in the background so far, but as soon as G1's back is turned* *explodes*

FW: *shouts at Fritz' tutors, fires one, pus the other on notice*

F: *sneaks out of his rooms at night, which btw shows that princes don't sleep alone but with household staff present, meets up with Wilhelmine, a book and a candle*

F & W: *read together from a French play on a classical subject*

*camera transitions from them as children to them as teens - F is 15, W is 17, soon to be 18 - declaiming the same lines at each other (the transformation into older F & W also gives them pet dogs without this getting pointed out)*

If you want to watch those first 13 minutes as a kind of silent-to-you movie, here they are. (BTW, lol at whoever filed Der Thronfolger under "German fairy tale movies and movies for children".

The rest of the first episode goes thusly:

SD's salon, with W & F playing music, SD schemes with British ambassador, French ambassador talks to both F & W about Voltaire, F when French ambassador slightly chides him for not taking royal duties serious enough says au contraire, he's got plans "which will surprise a lot of people* before going back to beind a wide eyed Voltaire fanboy*

*Seckendorff & Grumpkow: meet up and scheme, in an exposition scene where we learn about the Austrian interest, why they're anti British marriage project, and Prince Eugene & Emperor Charles (MT's dad) being willing to spend money on foiling same.

Seckendorff: proceeds to broadly hint to FW his wife is scheming against him with the Brits

FW: I hear you.

*another dysfunctional Hollenzollern family breakfeast with marital warfare and F & W used as weapons: *ensues*

FW: *inspects his latest Long Fellows*
F: *all but signals he finds this boring*

FW: *loses temper*

FW: Here are two manly chaps from my army, not long fellows but good Prussian nobility, who are supposed to teach you how to value the militar more, Lieutenant Forget About Him and Lieutenant Katte!

Katte: *as soon as FW has left, casually drops hidden Voltaire volume from his waistcoat*

F: OMG you like Voltaire, too! *heart eyes* (This meeting happens around 30 minutes into the first ep, but Katte only has this and one more scene in this first episode)

SD: Schemes some more with British ambassador*

F: *secretly visits guy who buys forbidden to him books for him*

Guy: I've got two more volumes, but then I ran out of cash.

F: And I'm already in your debt! Damn, I need to find a source for money somehow!

Katte: *enters secret book hideout with his second scene in this ep* Good news! Your father takes you on the state visit to Dresden, your highness, King August insisted! You'll finally get a break from Prussia. And it's carnival at a Catholic court, too. You'll have fun. "The King and the crown prince of Sparta will visit Athens." (Literal quote from episode)

F: Hooray! My life is finally getting better, Hans. (Yep, this is another version where he's Hans-ing him to signal to the audience they've become friends; Otoh, Katte says "my prince" and "your highness")


State visit to Dresden: Ensues, complete with party times and orgy in as much as German 1980 tv law allows

FW and F: *are wide eyed, with even FW enjoying himself at first*

F: *also says hello to Quantz, introduced at this point as working in Dresden*

Orzelska: *is also introduced to the audience by gossiping courtiers as both August's bastard daughter and mistress*

Orzelska & Fritz: *catch each other's eyes while their fathers have a drinking competition*

August: *presents anonymous nude lady*

FW: *makes a step in her direction*

F: *makes two steps in her direction*

FW *has belated reality check* OMG! Fritz, avert your eyes! *drags his son outta there* OMG! Fritz, this is a really evil place! I only was playing along to be diplomatic, don't forget that when your mother asks!

F: Right. BTW, can't help but notice everyone is happy here.


FW: They're decadent. Also, Prussia is a poor country and we could never afford throwing money around like that. *Passes out*

Court dwarf: *beckons F to O*

F: imitates a French Rokoko novel in his instant Orzelska wooing; since he doesn't sound like that in the rest of the episode, including in his subsequent scenes with her, I'm assuming this is an intentional signal on the script's part that he's quoting and while being attracted essentially role playing*

F & O: *have sex, not shown, it's just signaled by closing bedroom door*

*transition to*

F, gleefully telling W about his Dresden adventures: ...and then August practically offered all the pretty women of the court to me if I leave Anna alone! He regards me as a rival!

W: So she's his mistress.

F: Yep.

W: While being his daughter.

F: Indeed.

W: That's disgusting.

F: *shrugs* Anything goes. I'm a sophisticated man of the world now, I don't mind. Hey, how about a pillow fight, sis?

F & W: have a pillow fight and general kid around, until footsteps are heard, annoucing FW with doctor in tow is on his way:

F: *poses as being ill* I know August will state visit soon, but I feel so exhausted from that decadent court, Dad, I'd rather not see all those immoral people again. I'm really ill!

FW: *has the second time in this ep where he approves of Fritz* Finally, my moral lessons bear fruit! Good boy. Recover soon!

W & F: *break into giggles once he's gone; F reveals how he faked his fever via heating stone*

W:... but why did you bother, I mean, don't you want to see her again?

F: Yes, but in secret and alone. Please give her this letter.

O: *shows up dressed as a man a few hours later*

F: *in pointed contrast to earlier novel phrases* Wow. Anna. I say.

O: *does look very hot indeed in male attire, ravishes him*

F: I love you, please stay.

O: As what, exactly? Your mistress? In this state?

F: Um. As my wife? I'll totally marry you!

O: You're sweet. Leaving aside that you can't, since I'm a bastard...

F: I'd change the law!

O: You know what, you actually might. But not for me. You hardly know me.

F: Well, you can't go back to Dresden, can you? I mean... you can't.... "Do you love your father?" (*literal quote from episode*)

O: "Do you love yours?" (*also literal quote from ep*)

F: *says nothing*

O: Look, I brought you a farewell present! *calls Quantz into the room* (footnote: I assume this means Quantz has patiently been waiting the whole time in the antechamber?)

F: You're the best. *exit Orzelska from tale*

*transition to*

F, W & Quantz playing music together*

FW: *catches them at it*

FW: *explodes, abuses F both verbally and physically, ending with the infamous "you're a coward without honor, if my father had done this to me, I'd have killed him!"

W: *tries to comfort F*

F: I'll... do something. I don't know what yet. But something!

*End of first episode*


In addition to Fritz-at-Küstrin opening and childhood sequence covering the first 13 minutes, later particular points of interest:

26:46: Second dysfunctional Hohenzollern family meal of the ep begins (ends at 29: 58 when FW beats F out of the room)

30:35: Enter Katte

50:40: Fritz tells Wilhelmine all about being deflowered, totally beating August the Strong at sex, goofes around with his sister and fakes being ill for his father*

57:53: Orzelska presents Quantz as a farewell present, transition to F, W & Quantz getting caught by FW, FW losing it and W trying to comfort F as the first episode ends*

Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy

[mildred_of_midgard]

he totally ships them, not least because "They so thoroughly deserve each other".

Really? OMG, haha! I can totally see where he's coming from and that's hilarious, but my desire to Fix Everything in this fandom means I just want to give them both therapy and Remedial Interpersonal Relations 101 and let them try again. ;)

If you want to watch those first 13 minutes as a kind of silent-to-you movie, here they are.

This is awesome, and thanks so much for your summarizing/translation efforts! That's going way above and beyond for us non-German speakers. <3 I might check it out, even with the heteronormativity. It does sound like it manages to get a lot of things across.

Also, I have to say I laughed out loud at "silent-to-you movie." You know my foibles so well. ;)

sneaks out of his rooms at night, which btw shows that princes don't sleep alone but with household staff present, meets up with Wilhelmine, a book and a candle

Oh, good, yes. The difficulty of sneaking out to read is an important part of Fritz's childhood; he talks irl about how he got caught once, talked fast and gave the usual child-out-of-bed-after-hours excuse of "I needed to relieve myself" and didn't get in trouble, but didn't dare do it again, but then tried to make up for lost reading time in future years at Rheinsberg. Poor woobie teenage Fritz. I also used to sneak reading in at night, but at least my parents approved of my education in general, for the most part, and when they didn't, I only got yelled at, not beaten.

ending with the infamous "you're a coward without honor, if my father had done this to me, I'd have killed him!"

Ooh, interesting. The version I've always heard (aside from "I'd have run away") is "I'd have blown my brains out." FW taunting Fritz into killing *him*? FW, you are playing with fire and you are seriously lucky your son isn't Alexander and your wife is Olympia, not Olympias. ;)

BTW, lol at whoever filed Der Thronfolger under "German fairy tale movies and movies for children"

Uh, lol?

FW: Here are two manly chaps from my army, not long fellows but good Prussian nobility, who are supposed to teach you how to value the militar more, Lieutenant Forget About Him and Lieutenant Katte!

Katte: *as soon as FW has left, casually drops hidden Voltaire volume from his waistcoat*

F: OMG you like Voltaire, too! *heart eyes*

Hahahaha, omg, "Lieutenant Forget About Him" and also I love how FW is always trying to get people to either abuse his son or set a good example or both, and it almost never works, because FW is trying to swim upstream against the norms of his place and time. (I have a WIP where FW is like, "Look, this is Lieutenant Katte, who *used* to like literature and stuff, but now has gone straight and is here to show you the futility of your ways," and Katte is all, "So forbidden books, you acquire the money, I'll smuggle, we'll read together, cool?" Not knowing what's coming, they snicker at FW's obliviousness, because Katte is a very good chameleon, much better than Fritz.)

Der Thronfolger

[cahn]

and he totally ships them, not least because "They so thoroughly deserve each other".

LOL forever. He's not wrong?

Man, this is a work of love; thank you! <3

Katte and Wilhelmine in rl

[selenak]

ve often wondered about that double portrait. Platonic admiration on Katte's part? Attraction? (She and Fritz had enough in common, especially at that age, that if you like one, you might well end up liking the other, platonically or romantically.) Trying to make nice to her because she's so important in Fritz's life? Seriously worried about her ability to turn Fritz away from him?

A bit of all of the above? I also considered he might have wanted to distract from him and Fritz, but then discarded that, because paying court to the unmarried oldest princess in FW's eyes would have been almost as dammable as being bff plus with the crown prince, and if Wilhelmine had been seen as compromised by this, he'd have ruined her marriage prospects, and thus any chance she had to get away from her father. I don't see Katte as calculating and cold enough to do that to throw up a smoke screen.

Whereas it makes far more sense for him to try and win her (platonic) favor, to convince her at least there's no need to compete for Fritz' time and attention. I mean, Katte was a bit older than the siblings, wasn't he? So he could have been emotionally wise enough to deduce where Wilhelmine's disapproval of him came from.

Re: Katte and Wilhelmine in rl

[mildred_of_midgard]

paying court to the unmarried oldest princess in FW's eyes would have been almost as dammable as being bff

No kidding. And given the propensity of women to get pregnant, I think it would have been six of one, half a dozen of the other, in terms of which one FW would have considered worse. And given that historical FW accused W of sleeping with Katte *and* suspected him of sleeping with Fritz, I'm not sure adding more candidates to the list of illicit affairs would have occurred to Katte even if he had been cold and calculating. It's not either/or; once you're depraved enough to sleep with the Crown Prince, what's stopping you with the Princess?

And no, I don't see Katte as cold and calculating. Quite the opposite; I think he let his emotions get the better of his better judgment where Fritz was involved. :(

Katte was a bit older than the siblings, wasn't he? So he could have been emotionally wise enough

Yeah, 8 years older than Fritz and 5 years older than W. Older, more experienced in the world, and less traumatized. In my fic, I like to make him more emotionally wise (turns out being traumatized is also bad for your emotional awareness) and occasionally biting his tongue when Fritz, W, and Keith are being immature and thinking, "Remember how young they are!" And though he might not be able to articulate "Abuse is not great for acquiring emotional wisdom," he does get as far as, "S/he's going through a lot," especially with Fritz, and cuts them some slack. Which helps his relationship with a young and already-traumatized Fritz.

FW and Voltaire are the reason we can't have nice things

[cahn]

Dorothea :(((( So from your next comment it sounds like she at least got to marry a spice trader and possibly live a little more happily ever after?

If you think I'm staging a play about a female ruler who killed her late husband and gets killed by her son, you've got another think coming, Maitre.

BWAAHAHAHA. This whole thing was hilarious, but it's also just hilarious that Voltaire actually thought this would fly.

Um. Haven't you already written this opera Argenore where the heroine discoveres the man she loves is really her brother?

Oh Wilhelmine :( One of those things that's both hilarious and sad. :(

Re: FW and Voltaire are the reason we can't have nice things

[selenak]

Dorothea: yes, German wiki says she married a spice trader named Franz Heinrich Schommer and had six kids by him. She died in 1762, in Berlin, Behrensstraße.

Yes, Voltaire offering this play to Catherine, of all the people, was...special. This trailer, btw, for the Russian Catherine miniseries does a superb job of wanting me to watch said show and sum up her rise to power. (Oh, and the nominated Poniatowski also shows up, identified by name in the trailer.)

Re: FW and Voltaire are the reason we can't have nice things

[mildred_of_midgard]

I would be curious what you think, if you do watch it. I'm about halfway through the first season, mildly enjoying it so far. alley_skywalker, that Peter III fan who's always requesting Yuletide fic about him, has *opinions* about the show that are far more informed than my own.

Oh, I think when I very first heard about this show, although it didn't register with me at the time and it was only when I was looking for stuff about Peter that it registered on my radar, was in reference to Fritz's sexuality. Someone on tumblr had mentioned that Fritz showed up in two recent productions about Catherine, and someone else asked, "Being Russian productions, they probably ignore his sexuality?" "One does, the other has someone speculate that while Peter III was imitating his hero Fritz, maybe he picked up the sodomy vice as well." "...It's better when they ignore it."

Well, now that I've gotten to the episode where Elizabeth is concerned that Catherine is still a virgin and asked her advisors if maybe Fritz is indirectly to blame, I'm like, "Oh, *this* must be what that person was talking about, although those months ago."

I did remember Poniatowski's name flashing through the credits and wondered if the show (presumably in a later episode than I've gotten to) was what inspired someone to want fic about him, but why on earth he wasn't nominated in the already existing Ekaterina fandom, if not the 18th century Russian history fandom...we may never know. So far, you're the only one who's requested or offered (I assume) our Frederician fandom, although there's still several days to go.