[Part 1 of this email--it exceeds DW comment character limits]
That's a serious question.
I know that's a serious question; that's MY question! Why do you think I floundered through a first draft, gave up, and sent it to you with a frantic HALP? It wasn't just my musical ignorance!
I went to bed last night thinking, "I have a really clear idea of how I would *describe* the Fritz/Fredersdorf dynamic, but am lost on how to *depict* it." Especially since I think it was a lot of little things that added up over time. I think they got into a good feedback loop: Fredersdorf didn't make any major mistakes early on, did some small right things, a desperate and lonely Fritz started to open up, signaling that another small familiarity would be welcome, Fredersdorf saw his opportunity and took it, Fritz got the message that he was cared for and opened up a little bit more. This is hard to depict in one short fic!
how do you depict someone being kind to someone else? Particularly after first meeting them?
That's another hard part. That's why I set my fic a little bit later, when the trust has already started to develop. After first meeting the Crown Prince, I suspect Fredersdorf gave him music, cautious formality, and little else except what Fritz asked for.
There's a thought, actually. Fritz never hesitated to ask people to help him out against Dad. In fact, he largely acted like that that's what he thought other people were for, and he certainly didn't owe them anything in return. (This is the mindset of an emotionally stunted child fighting for his own survival, where everything else is a luxury--ballast that gets jettisoned in a storm.)
So here's an idea. Tell me what you think. Fritz had people smuggling letters to Wilhelmine since even before Katte was killed. And like I said, Fredersdorf is suspected of being one later on. So no, he's not the only one. But maaaaybe, since Wilhelmine is sooo important to Fritz, maybe Fredersdorf is the one who says something to the effect of: "Oh, yeah, I have an older sister too, who's very important to me. I will absolutely smuggle this letter out for you." I mean, we have no idea about Fredersdorf's family afaik, but families tended to be large, because birth control wasn't a thing. (Half siblings were also a thing, as women died in childbirth and were replaced.) So maybe he got lucky because he has an older sister, and maybe he doesn't have that "us against the world" relationship with her that Fritz does, but he figures out what Fritz wants to hear. Besides, Fritz doesn't want to hear about Fredersdorf's relationships in detail anyway*, he just wants validation of his own relationships. So maaybe, in half a sentence or so, without taking liberties, boring Fritz, or imposing on him, Fredersdorf manages to signal, "I get you," and then Fritz feels seen.
* Remember, "Fritz talks, Fredersdorf listens" is not just my take, but also what everyone who ever met Fritz said: he dominated every conversation he was in. One biographer sums it up along the lines of "He enjoyed conversation as long as he could provide the bulk of it."
Thoughts? I will try to come up with other ideas too, because that seems like a coincidence of the type I normally don't like (like *everyone* in Zeithain having an FW-like father, ugh).
Though it may come across as less of a coincidence and more of a Fritz being lonely and desperate, and Fredersdorf having the emotional intelligence to deal with it, as well as matching the exact pattern of convos with Fritz that you see in memoir after memoir of people who dealt with him, if the exchange goes something like this:
Fritz: *goes on about Wilhelmine* Fredersdorf: Yes, older sisters are extremely important. I will take the risk of smuggling this letter for you with joy in my heart. Fritz: *looks at him sharply* You have one? Fredersdorf: *manages without lying to communicate that he does, because he does, and that these relationships are soooo important, without actually stating that his sister is the most important person in his world* *most of the action takes place in his head while he figures out the right 1.5 sentences to say out loud to make Fritz feel seen* Fritz: Yes, exactly. You understand. *continues talking, warming up to Fredersdorf as he goes*
Anyway, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Will try to come up with others.
Also, since music was the key that unlocked the door of their relationship, I think it's likely that Fredersdorf was not simply very good at music (Quantz was presumably even better, but Fritz's relationship with him had more friction), but also low-key passionate about it. It's not just a job for him, just like it's not an upper-class accomplishment for Fritz, but it's integral to his identity. And low-key because Fritz wants someone to agree with him, not someone who makes demands on him to provide emotional labor. He might mirror Fritz's enthusiasm in such a way that Fritz can tell it's genuine and exists outside of trying to flatter him. (Good luck depicting that, lol.)
And you know how Fritz "stress[ed] the centrality of music to a true nobleman’s existence and his active life"? Maybe if you're lower-class but your soul responds to music like his does, you're really a nobleman at heart, just like if you're capable of reasoning, you're obviously an honorary man, not a woman. :P (Wilhelmine: *sigh*) And that's how you end up with the property of a nobleman, contrary to all normal practice and principles.
-Bringing him stuff that showed some thought? Like, food he actually liked, music selected with some care, ...? But I'm sure other people did that too :P
Yes, apparently (biographer again) the entire town of Küstrin pulled together to smuggle Fritz food he liked during the year of 1731. So we've got that, other people smuggling letters, at least one person in power getting him Fredersdorf in the first place so he can have music, the candles from Fouqué and whoever was in charge of extinguishing them in the first place, and the grenadier sobbing when he came to Fritz on the morning of November 6 and apologetically told Fritz he would have to hold his head to the window. "My dear, my poor prince." (Actual quote.) And that's just one year. Fredersdorf must have stood out in other respects, not just being kind.
(By the way, the exact quote regarding his mother, which I ran across while looking for the grenadier quote, is: "When my good mother was alive, I was cleaner, or, to speak more exactly, less unclean. My affectionate mother used to have made for me every year a dozen shirts with pretty ruffles, which she used to send to me wherever I might be. Since the irreparable loss of her which I have suffered, nobody has taken any care of me; but let us not touch that chord.")
-Reacting "correctly" when Fritz says something weird or off-kilter - whatever that means -- that's a separate question, I will think about that a bit more
Definitely worth thinking about, especially when you look at how Fritz's other relationships fell apart. Again coming out of my modern AU with therapy, is a picture in my head of Fritz as someone who very easily feels threatened, including by non-obvious triggers (because the universe is a hostile place that has to be fought), and who initiates a pre-emptive attack whenever he does. You see that in his approach to military strategy, to politics, and to interpersonal relationships. I think it's a fundamental part of how his amygdala deals with threats: fight whenever possible, rather than flight or freeze. Fight obliquely if necessary, but always fight.
If you're interacting with him, this feels a lot like a lot of attacks out of the blue when you didn't do anything wrong. So now you're feeling attacked, and your amygdala gets defensive and angry and resentful, and now you're in a bad feedback loop with him. When what really works is reassurance: getting his threat levels down to where he can be reasonable again. (Ideally without outright capitulating, because that just feeds into his control issues.) Anyway, I was delighted to see from one of selenak's quotes that Wilhelmine understood this! And so I feel like Fredersdorf must have gotten this one right too. Fredersdorf's emotional intelligence might very well have included being able to see an attack as a cry for help instead of a threat. (P.S. I still absolutely do not consider it the job of any of Fritz's subjects to be his therapist. I personally would never have. Feeling threatened when your monarch attacks you out of the blue and trying to protect yourself in an abusive situation is a reasonable act of self-preservation. I similarly don't consider it bb!Fritz's job to appease his father's fears (contra Mitford). I'm just saying, we're trying to get at a relationship that worked, and this is what I think would have worked best.)
This kind of thinking is what lies behind my poorly depicted exchange where Fritz challenges Fredersdorf to betray him to his father, and instead of getting offended and defensive, Fredersdorf calmly and lightly reassures him that he would never betray him. And Fritz wants to believe him, and he takes his cue from Fredersdorf's "this is not an argument, just a declaration of loyalty and affection" tone of voice and body language as much as the words, and he relaxes. And trusts Fredersdorf just that little bit more. And I tried to depict that Fredersdorf is getting used to this, and he's starting to relax, because his reassurances work. He doesn't need to freak out that he's being accused of saying the wrong thing--Fritz wants to be friendly. He just needs that extra bit of reassurance, because hell. He's in prison, and he's there because he was betrayed. Maybe Fredersdorf thinks it's reasonable to need reassurance, and he's grateful Fritz is still willing to believe him, after all he's been through. (Fritz, as you know, goes very quickly from "I'm announcing my escape plans to all and sundry" to "I'm not training an heir, because you can't ever let people know what you're thinking." I've long wondered if Fredersdorf maybe got his foot in the door before the latter had finished solidifying. Which is another reason I like putting their meeting earlier in the year, well before the EC marriage negotiations start.)
Oh, gratitude. Gratitude is a big thing Fritz liked. He, the ultimate ingrate ("other people are there to help me out against Dad, that's nothing noteworthy"), is constantly as king going on about how ingratitude is the worst. I suspect he took Fredersdorf's eventual embezzlement in that light, never mind how much he had asked of Fredersdorf for a moderate amount of pay. But for twenty-some years, Fredersdorf must have sent the message that he was grateful for all the trust and affection.
Other ways in which Fredersdorf's quiet, reserved nature probably paid off: he wasn't prone to quarreling. Fritz hated it when other people quarreled. That's really how it ended with Voltaire, or a big part of it: Voltaire was quarreling with everyone at Fritz's court, and remember when I summarized that episode with Fritz going, "Only I'm allowed to do that!"? I don't think he had that kind of self-awareness, he was repeatedly in denial about his role in all these quarrels or the rampant hypocrisy, but it was definitely his unspoken attitude. Fredersdorf was resented by various people at court, but more for his position than for anything specific he said. He actually seems to have been quietly inoffensive and not gone around provoking people. Although the fact that he got to make most of the non-Fritz decisions meant that some people inevitably took his unfavorable decisions as abuses of power (and I doubt he was immune to that any more than anyone else was), the point is, he wasn't picking fights. I get the impression he was just quietly telling everyone what to do and yes-ing or no-ing their requests, and his decisions were final. And that lack of drama would have helped his relationship with Fritz.
[Oh, other things Old Fritz hated in his later years: young people criticizing their elders; satirists, especially young ones.
Me: Say what now?]
One thing that's worth mentioning, though, is that even if at *no other* point in his life is Fritz touch-starved, when he meets Fredersdorf, he's just finished spending a few months in solitary confinement, followed by however many months of technically non-solitary confinement in significant isolation, spending most of his day with people who might not have been as abusive as Dad, and might have tried to mitigate the punishment, but who really didn't like him. In-person affection is thin on the ground at this point in his life, despite all the acts of kindness.
My impression of Fritz later in life, based partly on his personality and partly on his social context, is that he will caress the people he cares most about, but he's probably not on the receiving end a lot, except in strict reciprocation where that is socially acceptable. So he might have wanted more than he got. This actually might account for a lot of his devotion to his dogs, whom it was safe to cuddle endlessly, and who would compete to jump up on his lap. (Whoever won got to be "queen" for the day and be extra spoiled, which is endearing and possibly also very telling.) I also suspect SD was allowed to be a big exception here--when he saw her, which wasn't all that much.
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Re: The emails
Date: 2020-01-01 04:38 pm (UTC)Sent: Dec 4
[Part 1 of this email--it exceeds DW comment character limits]
That's a serious question.
I know that's a serious question; that's MY question! Why do you think I floundered through a first draft, gave up, and sent it to you with a frantic HALP? It wasn't just my musical ignorance!
I went to bed last night thinking, "I have a really clear idea of how I would *describe* the Fritz/Fredersdorf dynamic, but am lost on how to *depict* it." Especially since I think it was a lot of little things that added up over time. I think they got into a good feedback loop: Fredersdorf didn't make any major mistakes early on, did some small right things, a desperate and lonely Fritz started to open up, signaling that another small familiarity would be welcome, Fredersdorf saw his opportunity and took it, Fritz got the message that he was cared for and opened up a little bit more. This is hard to depict in one short fic!
how do you depict someone being kind to someone else? Particularly after first meeting them?
That's another hard part. That's why I set my fic a little bit later, when the trust has already started to develop. After first meeting the Crown Prince, I suspect Fredersdorf gave him music, cautious formality, and little else except what Fritz asked for.
There's a thought, actually. Fritz never hesitated to ask people to help him out against Dad. In fact, he largely acted like that that's what he thought other people were for, and he certainly didn't owe them anything in return. (This is the mindset of an emotionally stunted child fighting for his own survival, where everything else is a luxury--ballast that gets jettisoned in a storm.)
So here's an idea. Tell me what you think. Fritz had people smuggling letters to Wilhelmine since even before Katte was killed. And like I said, Fredersdorf is suspected of being one later on. So no, he's not the only one. But maaaaybe, since Wilhelmine is sooo important to Fritz, maybe Fredersdorf is the one who says something to the effect of: "Oh, yeah, I have an older sister too, who's very important to me. I will absolutely smuggle this letter out for you." I mean, we have no idea about Fredersdorf's family afaik, but families tended to be large, because birth control wasn't a thing. (Half siblings were also a thing, as women died in childbirth and were replaced.) So maybe he got lucky because he has an older sister, and maybe he doesn't have that "us against the world" relationship with her that Fritz does, but he figures out what Fritz wants to hear. Besides, Fritz doesn't want to hear about Fredersdorf's relationships in detail anyway*, he just wants validation of his own relationships. So maaybe, in half a sentence or so, without taking liberties, boring Fritz, or imposing on him, Fredersdorf manages to signal, "I get you," and then Fritz feels seen.
* Remember, "Fritz talks, Fredersdorf listens" is not just my take, but also what everyone who ever met Fritz said: he dominated every conversation he was in. One biographer sums it up along the lines of "He enjoyed conversation as long as he could provide the bulk of it."
Thoughts? I will try to come up with other ideas too, because that seems like a coincidence of the type I normally don't like (like *everyone* in Zeithain having an FW-like father, ugh).
Though it may come across as less of a coincidence and more of a Fritz being lonely and desperate, and Fredersdorf having the emotional intelligence to deal with it, as well as matching the exact pattern of convos with Fritz that you see in memoir after memoir of people who dealt with him, if the exchange goes something like this:
Fritz: *goes on about Wilhelmine*
Fredersdorf: Yes, older sisters are extremely important. I will take the risk of smuggling this letter for you
with joy in my heart.Fritz: *looks at him sharply* You have one?
Fredersdorf: *manages without lying to communicate that he does, because he does, and that these relationships are soooo important, without actually stating that his sister is the most important person in his world* *most of the action takes place in his head while he figures out the right 1.5 sentences to say out loud to make Fritz feel seen*
Fritz: Yes, exactly. You understand. *continues talking, warming up to Fredersdorf as he goes*
Anyway, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Will try to come up with others.
Also, since music was the key that unlocked the door of their relationship, I think it's likely that Fredersdorf was not simply very good at music (Quantz was presumably even better, but Fritz's relationship with him had more friction), but also low-key passionate about it. It's not just a job for him, just like it's not an upper-class accomplishment for Fritz, but it's integral to his identity. And low-key because Fritz wants someone to agree with him, not someone who makes demands on him to provide emotional labor. He might mirror Fritz's enthusiasm in such a way that Fritz can tell it's genuine and exists outside of trying to flatter him. (Good luck depicting that, lol.)
And you know how Fritz "stress[ed] the centrality of music to a true nobleman’s existence and his active life"? Maybe if you're lower-class but your soul responds to music like his does, you're really a nobleman at heart, just like if you're capable of reasoning, you're obviously an honorary man, not a woman. :P (Wilhelmine: *sigh*) And that's how you end up with the property of a nobleman, contrary to all normal practice and principles.
-Bringing him stuff that showed some thought? Like, food he actually liked, music selected with some care, ...? But I'm sure other people did that too :P
Yes, apparently (biographer again) the entire town of Küstrin pulled together to smuggle Fritz food he liked during the year of 1731. So we've got that, other people smuggling letters, at least one person in power getting him Fredersdorf in the first place so he can have music, the candles from Fouqué and whoever was in charge of extinguishing them in the first place, and the grenadier sobbing when he came to Fritz on the morning of November 6 and apologetically told Fritz he would have to hold his head to the window. "My dear, my poor prince." (Actual quote.) And that's just one year. Fredersdorf must have stood out in other respects, not just being kind.
(By the way, the exact quote regarding his mother, which I ran across while looking for the grenadier quote, is: "When my good mother was alive, I was cleaner, or, to speak more exactly, less unclean. My affectionate mother used to have made for me every year a dozen shirts with pretty ruffles, which she used to send to me wherever I might be. Since the irreparable loss of her which I have suffered, nobody has taken any care of me; but let us not touch that chord.")
-Reacting "correctly" when Fritz says something weird or off-kilter - whatever that means -- that's a separate question, I will think about that a bit more
Definitely worth thinking about, especially when you look at how Fritz's other relationships fell apart. Again coming out of my modern AU with therapy, is a picture in my head of Fritz as someone who very easily feels threatened, including by non-obvious triggers (because the universe is a hostile place that has to be fought), and who initiates a pre-emptive attack whenever he does. You see that in his approach to military strategy, to politics, and to interpersonal relationships. I think it's a fundamental part of how his amygdala deals with threats: fight whenever possible, rather than flight or freeze. Fight obliquely if necessary, but always fight.
If you're interacting with him, this feels a lot like a lot of attacks out of the blue when you didn't do anything wrong. So now you're feeling attacked, and your amygdala gets defensive and angry and resentful, and now you're in a bad feedback loop with him. When what really works is reassurance: getting his threat levels down to where he can be reasonable again. (Ideally without outright capitulating, because that just feeds into his control issues.) Anyway, I was delighted to see from one of selenak's quotes that Wilhelmine understood this! And so I feel like Fredersdorf must have gotten this one right too. Fredersdorf's emotional intelligence might very well have included being able to see an attack as a cry for help instead of a threat. (P.S. I still absolutely do not consider it the job of any of Fritz's subjects to be his therapist. I personally would never have. Feeling threatened when your monarch attacks you out of the blue and trying to protect yourself in an abusive situation is a reasonable act of self-preservation. I similarly don't consider it bb!Fritz's job to appease his father's fears (contra Mitford). I'm just saying, we're trying to get at a relationship that worked, and this is what I think would have worked best.)
This kind of thinking is what lies behind my poorly depicted exchange where Fritz challenges Fredersdorf to betray him to his father, and instead of getting offended and defensive, Fredersdorf calmly and lightly reassures him that he would never betray him. And Fritz wants to believe him, and he takes his cue from Fredersdorf's "this is not an argument, just a declaration of loyalty and affection" tone of voice and body language as much as the words, and he relaxes. And trusts Fredersdorf just that little bit more. And I tried to depict that Fredersdorf is getting used to this, and he's starting to relax, because his reassurances work. He doesn't need to freak out that he's being accused of saying the wrong thing--Fritz wants to be friendly. He just needs that extra bit of reassurance, because hell. He's in prison, and he's there because he was betrayed. Maybe Fredersdorf thinks it's reasonable to need reassurance, and he's grateful Fritz is still willing to believe him, after all he's been through. (Fritz, as you know, goes very quickly from "I'm announcing my escape plans to all and sundry" to "I'm not training an heir, because you can't ever let people know what you're thinking." I've long wondered if Fredersdorf maybe got his foot in the door before the latter had finished solidifying. Which is another reason I like putting their meeting earlier in the year, well before the EC marriage negotiations start.)
Oh, gratitude. Gratitude is a big thing Fritz liked. He, the ultimate ingrate ("other people are there to help me out against Dad, that's nothing noteworthy"), is constantly as king going on about how ingratitude is the worst. I suspect he took Fredersdorf's eventual embezzlement in that light, never mind how much he had asked of Fredersdorf for a moderate amount of pay. But for twenty-some years, Fredersdorf must have sent the message that he was grateful for all the trust and affection.
Other ways in which Fredersdorf's quiet, reserved nature probably paid off: he wasn't prone to quarreling. Fritz hated it when other people quarreled. That's really how it ended with Voltaire, or a big part of it: Voltaire was quarreling with everyone at Fritz's court, and remember when I summarized that episode with Fritz going, "Only I'm allowed to do that!"? I don't think he had that kind of self-awareness, he was repeatedly in denial about his role in all these quarrels or the rampant hypocrisy, but it was definitely his unspoken attitude. Fredersdorf was resented by various people at court, but more for his position than for anything specific he said. He actually seems to have been quietly inoffensive and not gone around provoking people. Although the fact that he got to make most of the non-Fritz decisions meant that some people inevitably took his unfavorable decisions as abuses of power (and I doubt he was immune to that any more than anyone else was), the point is, he wasn't picking fights. I get the impression he was just quietly telling everyone what to do and yes-ing or no-ing their requests, and his decisions were final. And that lack of drama would have helped his relationship with Fritz.
[Oh, other things Old Fritz hated in his later years: young people criticizing their elders; satirists, especially young ones.
Me: Say what now?]
One thing that's worth mentioning, though, is that even if at *no other* point in his life is Fritz touch-starved, when he meets Fredersdorf, he's just finished spending a few months in solitary confinement, followed by however many months of technically non-solitary confinement in significant isolation, spending most of his day with people who might not have been as abusive as Dad, and might have tried to mitigate the punishment, but who really didn't like him. In-person affection is thin on the ground at this point in his life, despite all the acts of kindness.
My impression of Fritz later in life, based partly on his personality and partly on his social context, is that he will caress the people he cares most about, but he's probably not on the receiving end a lot, except in strict reciprocation where that is socially acceptable. So he might have wanted more than he got. This actually might account for a lot of his devotion to his dogs, whom it was safe to cuddle endlessly, and who would compete to jump up on his lap. (Whoever won got to be "queen" for the day and be extra spoiled, which is endearing and possibly also very telling.) I also suspect SD was allowed to be a big exception here--when he saw her, which wasn't all that much.