cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

All 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

This is practically a Yuletide fic. Like, no even needs to fictionalize it--I got my fic for this year. This is it.

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.

From:

selenak

:) Glad you like. When I read about this interlude, I knew I had to share the goods. Including some original quotes, like Heinrich‘s attempt to persuade Fritz to join the Wusterhausen trip after all. I mean. Yeah. What you said.

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.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

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).

That definitely makes sense.

(I‘m tempted to assume Wilhelmine‘s reaction to reading this was „this is not news!“

"Welcome to my life!"

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Also, how much hassle would it be for you to scan and upload the page(s) containing the family reunion? If too much, then no worries, but I wouldn't mind having a copy.

From:

selenak

I'll try, but I can't promise anything, I have to be careful not to break any spines. I'll message you if I succeed.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Thank you! What I ended up doing with the Lady Mary/Algarotti letters was holding the book open with one hand, so one side of the book is lying flat and the other sticking straight into the air, at a 90 degree angle, and taking a picture of the flat bit with my phoe. It resulted in some wavy and slanted text, but readable, and didn't bend the spine, compared to pressing it flat in a scanner.

From:

selenak

Success! I managed a decent jpeg scan and afterwards marked the particularly relevant passages for you:

photo InkedHohenzollern1_LI_zpsw3jdsikh.jpg

photo InkedHohenzollern2_LI_zpsll6vugml.jpg

photo InkedInkedHohenzollern3_LI_zpspk2bm8jb.jpg

photo InkedHohenzollern4_LI_zpsbxwuhsd7.jpg

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.

Edited Date: 2019-11-30 05:01 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Thank you so much!

From:

cahn

When you run this through google translate, I want access to it too :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I haven't yet, but will keep that in mind!

From:

cahn

incidentally, if anyone is wondering, Amalie and Heinrich made up

I was. So thank you for letting me know :)

From:

cahn

Hee! Oh, yes! I will link her :D

From:

cahn

Wait, what, as I said to

selenak somewhere above, the opera is actually based kind of on fact?? I mean, not the awkward poly thing, but Gustav is totally blase about being in danger, there is indeed a soothsayer, and he is shot at a ball.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, then, you know the story! I didn't know there was an opera covering all this. I just glanced at Wikipedia and had to share the WTFery.

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

From:

cahn

Tried to edit my comment but you'd already replied :D

selenak suggested I link you -- here are my reactions to watching Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), which also double as a synopsis, more or less. In the comments zdenka also links to a synopsis from her DW, which is a better synopsis and probably funnier as well :)

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).

From:

selenak

There are actually several operas, though Verdi's won the test of time. I mean, if a King - one famous for his scandals, his opera love and opera financing, no less - gets assassinated - well, shot at - in the opera during a masque ball, you don't expect composers to resist, do you? Poor old Verdi and his librettists had to change their script several times, though, as by the 19th century censorship was very tetchy about the depiction of assassinations involving royalty. So Gustav first got demoted from Swedish King to Duke of Pomerania, and then, when censorship still wasn't satisfied and demanded the entire action to be transferred to another continent, he ended up as "Riccardo, Governor in Boston". Bet you didn't know the early Puritans partied like that, did you?

(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.)