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cahnAll Yuletide requests are out!
Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!
-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)
Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!
-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French
-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...
Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links
Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!
-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)
Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!
-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French
-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...
Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links
Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-26 03:01 pm (UTC)So, the 7 Years war is long over, we're in the 1770s.
Gustav: I'm on my Grand Tour, and have just heard my old man has kicked it. Might as well say to hi to Uncle Fritz, Most Famous Monarch Of Europe while I'm on my way back. I've got plans, people! Visiting Paris just illustrated to me how much absolute monarchy rocks.
Fritz to Heinrich: Ulrike's kid is coming. Mind dropping by? "For I believe the two of us are not too many to preach restraint to him, or at least quench his initial fire."
Heinrich: Okay. Gustav, you don't know how rare an event this is, but the two of us agree on something, and that something is that a coup d'etat in Sweden IS A REALLY BAD IDEA.
Fritz: Which I'm not willing to finance. Ever.
Gustav: Whatever. Bye, Uncles!
Ulrike: I am womanfully ignoring your dastardly letter about Henricus Minor, Fritz, if you finance a state visit for me. For some reason, newly crowned Gustav thinks he doesn't need my advice anymore and calls me "interfering" and "arrogant".
Heinrich: Come on, invite Ulrike. Who knows whether we'll ever see her again otherwise?
Fritz: Fine. Ulrike, you're invited.
Ulrike: *arrives with one of her daughters, gets state visit reception in Potsdam; her sister Charlotte comes from Braunschweig, which means all three of the surviving sisters as well as all surviving brothers are together at the same place at the same time*
Ulrike: Boys, I've just got a wonderful idea! Why don't we make a family trip to darling old Wusterhausen, where dear old Dad used to spend the summer holidays with us! I missed that place so much in Sweden, I can't tell you.
Fritz: You mean the house of horrors where I spent some of the worst times of my life, only made bearable by Wihelmine WHO IS NO LONGER THERE! Nope. Not coming.
Heinrich: Come on. "We will remember every corner where we were scolded and sometimes hit. But even the sufferings one remembers from one's childhood cause joy in one's advanced years."
Fritz: To you, maybe. NOT COMING.
Heinrich: Have it your way. Girls, Ferdinand, off we go.
Hohenzollern Sisters: Wow. That place brings memories. Dad was - well. But you know, Mom was worse.
Hohenzollern Brothers: WTF? Dad was way worse than Mom!
Family quarrel: *ensues*
(No really, they have a giant sibling face off about which of their parents was worse. In the end, Ulrike and Charlotte as well as Ferdinand give up, whereas Heinrich and Amalie still keep going, with Heinrich insisting FW was worst and Amalie insisting SD was worst until they swear never to talk to each other again.)
Fritz: Had a good time in dear old Wusterhausen, did we?
Heinrich: Shut up.
Ulrike: So, Heinrich, I'm hearing wonders about Rheinsberg. Why don't I visit your place next?
Heinrich: By all means. I have these wonderful musicians, including Mara the very hot Cellist, my current boyfriend. Party time for my royal sister! Fritz, mind if I borrow Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling? Ulrike deserves to hear the best soprano of our time while she's visiting me.
Fritz: You know....
Heinrich: You're not getting thrifty, are you?
Fritz: Sure, you can have her.
Reinsberg visit by Ulrike with lots of Rokoko parties: *ensues*
Mara/Schmeling love affair: *ensues*
Heinrich: I'm not sure how that was a plot by Fritz, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Ah well. Mara was getting expensive. At least now La Schmeling can pay his bills.
Fritz: Ulrike, the six months I promised to finance your state visit for are almost over. Just saying.
Ulrike: Heinrich, you've got to help me with my kid. That was so touching, you defending Mom to Amalie. I'm just like her! There is no end to a mother's love!
Heinrich: Dear Nephew Gustav, be nice to your mother. "Forget the many little misunderstandings that have caused your quarrel. (...) The Queen loves you with all her heart. She talks of you with tears in her eyes, and since she loves you so much, her vulnerability is the greatest."
Gustav: Fine. Mom, you can come home. Incidentally - I've just successfully reintroduced absolute monarchy to Sweden. Next thing on my to do list: get an heir!
Ulrike: GUSTAV, I AM PROUD OF YOU. Okay, brothers, sisters, lovely to have seen you again. Farewell! Off I go to Sweden.
Fritz: Did our nephew just...
Heinrich: He did. Brace yourself, I'm still agreeing with you that this is not a good idea.
Fritz: In that spirit of rare fraternal unity, please go visit Catherine in St. Petersburg. Because I don't think she'll like an all powerful Swedish king next door.
Heinrich: *takes off to visit Catherine*
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-28 01:08 am (UTC)Wow. I just...can't.
Heinrich: Come on. "We will remember every corner where we were scolded and sometimes hit. But even the sufferings one remembers from one's childhood cause joy in one's advanced years."
Fritz: To you, maybe. NOT COMING.
And in a stunning role reversal, Fritz displays the MOST emotional intelligence of the (surviving) Hohenzollern kids! Or maybe just the most traumatized-at-Wusterhausen. Either way. Fritz, sometimes I despair of you, but sometimes you make me so proud.
The rest of you, OMG, we said family therapy and hugs and music, not family poking of old wounds! HOW did you think this was a good idea?? Heinrich! You're supposed to be smarter than this!
Hohenzollern Sisters: Wow. That place brings memories. Dad was - well. But you know, Mom was worse.
Hohenzollern Brothers: WTF? Dad was way worse than Mom!
Guys, *we* figured out the gender-based difference in your upbringing just from reading about your wacko upbringing three centuries later! Surely maybe you could get a clue and realize that different kids can have different experiences with the same parents? Like, you know how upset you all are that Fritz treated Wilhelmine better than the rest of you? Maybe Mom and Dad had their favorites too?
Also, this is all supporting my guess that the worse Dad treated someone the better Mom treated them, and vice versa. Hence Fritz and his "Saint Mom" experience to go with, "Oh, yeah, Dad totally had to be talked out of executing me, and that's *after* the times he had to be dragged away from trying to strangle me with a cord around my neck, which caused me to run away in the first place. Heinrich, you say you want to reminisce about the times he 'sometimes' hit you? Have fun with that. Amalie, you say ONE FUCKING WORD about Dear Departed Mom and that's IT."
(It occurs to me that Amalie is the unmarried one who kind of lives with or at least near Fritz, and is most financially dependent on him. I kind of have to wonder if she was so free with her opinions about Mom around him, or if the details of this fight got back to him, and if so if he had anything to say to her.)
Next thing on my to do list: get an heir!
I love how you threw that in there! This is definitely the show where material from earlier episodes pays off in in-jokes in later episodes. :D
Fritz: In that spirit of rare fraternal unity, please go visit Catherine in St. Petersburg. Because I don't think she'll like an all powerful Swedish king next door.
Wikipedia tells me that in fact she did not, and she and Gustav were at war between 1788-1790, so starting two years after Fritz died (Heinrich was alive and well for another decade and more). Also that Gustav was assassinated in 1792. Can't say I'm surprised by either of these facts.
Look. Gustav. If your uncles manage to agree on something, maybe you should sit up and pay attention.
Also, this:
Gustav: I have received an anonymous tip that there is a plan to assassinate me at the next masked ball. In keeping with the excellent judgment I've displayed so far, how about I go to the ball, hang out in an opera box overlooking the dancing floor as a prime shooting target, and dare anyone to kill me.
Gustav in the box: Bring it, bitches!
Ten minutes later...
Gustav: Well, if they were going to shoot me, they would have shot me by now. Let's go down and enjoy the party. Seems perfectly safe.
Gustav at the ball: *gets shot*
To add insult to injury, it wasn't even a fatal shot in and of itself, but 18th century medicine happened, and he died two weeks later when the wound became infected. *facepalm*
Oh, Gustav.
Also, adding to the whole eerie parallel with the Ides of March, there was a literal soothsayer involved, at least tangentially. Gustav had visited one a few years earlier, she had said something that could be interpreted as a prediction of this plot, and she was interrogated after the assassination. Apparently she was found innocent, but it's a bit eerie.
Gustav, I don't know if you share your uncle's opinions about Shakespeare, but surely you can at least read your Plutarch? But then I guess Sweden would not be the Dallas of Rococo Scandinavia. And your aunts and uncles and mother are keeping the bar high for Hohenzollern Crazy. That family tradition is a lot to live up to.
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-28 04:09 pm (UTC)Re: Amalie, my guess is she probably was more discreet around Big Bro most of the time regarding her feelings about their mother. Of course, it‘s worth considering that as the sole unmarried sister and the second youngest child overall (Ferdinand being the youngest), she was simultanously the daughter who lived with SD the longest (as she didn‘t marry), and was least exposed to FW (due to being a daughter as well as a child when he died).
(The strict gender divide in the „who was worst?“ fight confirms all my theories, too.)
Incidentally, the letters from Fritz to Wilhelmine from the early 1730s that I‘ve heard contain a criticism of their mother, but it‘s the only one I‘ve heard/read from him. To wit: „Our most gracious sovereign and queen are competing in ill temper, and one cannot make one happy without agrieving the other.“ (I‘m tempted to assume Wilhelmine‘s reaction to reading this was „this is not news!“
Gustav‘s comment on this summary of his demise: And that‘s why I‘m the only one in this music loving family whom an entire Verdi opera has been written about. No, Uncle Fritz, Don Carlo doesn‘t count. Un Ballo di Mascera rules! As patron and builder of Stockholm‘s opera, I approve.
Cahn, do link Mildred to some appropriate arias or at least your reviews. :)
But seriously, if Fritz and Heinrich agree on something, and go to some effort to doubletag their nephew in order to talk sense into him, it really is better to listen.
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-28 04:47 pm (UTC)That definitely makes sense.
(I‘m tempted to assume Wilhelmine‘s reaction to reading this was „this is not news!“
"Welcome to my life!"
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-28 05:00 pm (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 06:12 am (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:26 pm (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-30 04:38 pm (UTC)ETA: incidentally, if anyone is wondering, Amalie and Heinrich made up, they did see each other (and talked to each other) again. Also, by now I know Amalie had an argument with SD just a day before SD's death which ended with SD refusing to let Amalie kiss her hand when parting (which apparantly was how you said goodbye to Mom even in old age) and did not talk to her, so, really bad feelings.
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-30 05:01 pm (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-02 09:25 pm (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-02 10:16 pm (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-02 09:25 pm (UTC)I was. So thank you for letting me know :)
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:20 am (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:19 am (UTC)Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:24 am (UTC)So I guess if you're not going to read the cautionary tales, Gustav, you can yourself become the cautionary tale for opera lovers? I can see the value in having the cautionary tale encoded in several different genres, so as to reach the widest audience possible. :P
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:28 am (UTC)Basically, the plot is actually the history you have delineated in this thread, except that Verdi added a love triangle with a best friend (who is obviously my favorite! :D <3 ), who ends up joining the conspirators.
Also, Gustav in the opera is (apparently at least somewhat intentionally) written as totally bi, although I didn't clue into that when I first watched it (the direction didn't really make a thing of it).
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 06:10 am (UTC)(These days, the opera is produced in both the rewritten and the original draft version.)
(This problem kept happening to Verdi. It's also why Rigoletto, which is based on Victor Hugo's novella Le Roi S'Amuse, got transfered to Mantua, with King Francis I. ending up as the anomymous Duke of Mantua. (Who doesn't die, but there is an assassination attempt. Like I said - tetchy censorship was tetchy.)
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:15 am (UTC)(I know I say that a lot, but there are a lot of best things OKAY)
Fritz to Heinrich: Ulrike's kid is coming. Mind dropping by? "For I believe the two of us are not too many to preach restraint to him, or at least quench his initial fire."
Heinrich: Okay. Gustav, you don't know how rare an event this is, but the two of us agree on something, and that something is that a coup d'etat in Sweden IS A REALLY BAD IDEA.
HAHAHAHA (I think one of my narrative kinks is people who don't ever agree, agreeing because something really IS that good or bad of an idea...)
(No really, they have a giant sibling face off about which of their parents was worse. In the end, Ulrike and Charlotte as well as Ferdinand give up, whereas Heinrich and Amalie still keep going, with Heinrich insisting FW was worst and Amalie insisting SD was worst until they swear never to talk to each other again.)
WOW. I'm just... a combination of rubbernecking and facepalming, here.
(and if Wilhelmine and Fritz had been there I feel like they might have pointed out that they could both be the worst to different people?? I feel like W and F kind of understood that??)
Fritz: Had a good time in dear old Wusterhausen, did we?
LOL FOREVER FRITZ
Next thing on my to do list: get an heir!
hee!
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 12:53 pm (UTC)Hm, yes and no. I think that depends on when in their lives they were thinking about their parents? As long as both are still alive, it's worth noting Fritz always in his letters gives a kind of weather report to Bayreuth, i.e. "the Queen has gone somewhat cold on you" or "The Queen loves you", ditto for FW, and there is the one remark I quoted earlier to Mildred re: "it's impossible to make one happy without aggrieving the other" from 1733 or 1734. But there is absolutely nothing from him in any book I've read to equal Wilhelmine's most bitter statement - not given to Fritz - about her mother, that SD loved none of her children and was only using them as means to an end. Not that this was always Wilhelmine's consistent opinion, either; the lengthier characterisation she gives of SD in the memoirs does describe her with positive qualities as well bad ones.
They're more consistent in their FW opinion, both in the sense of regarding him as a menace to their lives and in being simultanously in awe of him and on some level never stopping to want him to be proud of them. But at least for Fritz, I would say post FW's death he has a "no one gets to diss my father but me" attitude. And Wilhelmine might kill off her father's avatar in Argenore after making that character sing about how he's destroyed his son and daughter, she might secretely write her memoirs painting her father as an abusive bastard - but she also was capable of writing "I am my father's daughter, I can face anything" early in the 7 Years War, i.e. retrospectively classifying those years of abuse as something she's currently drawing strength from in her miserable state.
So how would they have reacted had they been present in Wusterhausen? I suspect Wilhelmine would have tried to shut down the discussion early on, knowing nothing good could come of it, and she wouldn't have given her own opinion, but if Fritz afterwards, outside of everyone's earshot, had said something along the lines of "can you believe Amalie maligning Mom like that?", she might have replied "Well, Mom was a good mother...to you."
(Further tidbit from the Heinrich biography: SD visits Rheinsberg for the first time about a year or two after Heinrich has got it from Fritz as a main residence. Heinrich throws her a party much as AW has done in Oranienburg. SD: "How beautiful everything is here! How wonderfully well, with so much taste your brother has made this place his own. He truly is a marvel.")
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-11-29 04:23 pm (UTC)This. This is exactly Fritz post-FW's death. And Fritz goes overboard trying to be fair to FW, praising him to the skies as king and downplaying the abuse (while still acknowledging it).
I suspect Wilhelmine would have tried to shut down the discussion early on, knowing nothing good could come of it, and she wouldn't have given her own opinion, but if Fritz afterwards, outside of everyone's earshot, had said something along the lines of "can you believe Amalie maligning Mom like that?", she might have replied "Well, Mom was a good mother...to you."
That seems plausible to me.
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-02 09:24 pm (UTC)Huh. I don't have context (are these in the memoirs? I stopped reading before that point) but is it possible that she's talking about FW's character (I mean, he seems to have been at least as stubborn as Fritz!) rather than the abuse in particular?
...but yeah, that all makes sense. (And Wilhelmine does seem like the most self-aware and peacemaking of them, in general.)
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-03 12:52 am (UTC)is it possible that she's talking about FW's character (I mean, he seems to have been at least as stubborn as Fritz!) rather than the abuse in particular
I absolutely parsed this as FW's rather impressive and extremely Fritz-like endurance in the face of crippling pain/illness and other hardships, though I suppose it's also possible she saw her abusive childhood as the fire that tempered the steel? But yes, context might make it clear one way or the other.
Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion
Date: 2019-12-03 08:18 am (UTC)