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Frederick the Great discussion post 12
Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!
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rheinsberg :)
All the good stuff continues to be archived at
rheinsberg :)
The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
The easy ones:
Émilie: Ravenclaw.
AW: Gryffindor.
Ulrike: Slytherin.
Fredersdorf: Hufflepuff.
Franz Stephan: Hufflepuff
Peter Keith: Ravenclaw
Wilhelmine: Ravenclaw, though insisted on being sorted into Gryffindor or Slytherin (whichever it was) to keep Fritz company
Algarotti: Ravenclaw
Trenck: the dumbest Gryffindor. But definitely Gryffindor.
Gustav: the dumbest Slytherin. Seriously.
EC: Hufflepuff
SD: Slytherin
The trickier ones:
MT: Gryffindor with strong Slytherin streak or Slytherin with a strong Gryffindor streak? You decide.
Fritz: Ditto. Bravery, ambition and cunning all dominant traits.
Voltaire: Ravenclaw gone bad or superintellectual Slytherin? You decide.
Katte: Gryffindor. Despite his interest in the arts, I don't see him as a Ravenclaw.
Heinrich: Is Fritz' other self, so, see above.
Joseph: Ravenclaw who thinks he's a Slytherin.
FW: Gryffindor gone bad who thinks he's a Hufflepuff
Other thoughts? contesting opinions?
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Katte: Gryffindor. Despite his interest in the arts, I don't see him as a Ravenclaw.
Easy one for me too. Dyed-in-the-wool Gryffindor. Loyalty notwithstanding, I don't even see him as a Hufflepuff, as in your pre-edited comment.
MT: Gryffindor with strong Slytherin streak or Slytherin with a strong Gryffindor streak? You decide.
Fritz: Ditto. Bravery, ambition and cunning all dominant traits.
Not sure about MT, but I see Fritz as the Slytherin who argued with the Sorting Hat for several minutes that he was a Ravenclaw, the ULTIMATE RAVENCLAW, but the Hat refused to fall for it. "Green and silver table for you, kid."
Strong Gryffindor streak, definitely. And I hated the way Slytherin was characterized in the books--I would have liked a lot more nuance--so I'm always torn between "how JKR presented Slytherin" and "how I would present Slytherin" when sorting people there, but then I'm going to ruin all our fun if I go on my rant of "If you want to fuck kids up, sort them into a house at age 11, tell them their entire experience in life will be governed by one personality trait that's set in stone, oh, and make sure one of the houses is the evil house, that will help."
Trenck: the dumbest Gryffindor. But definitely Gryffindor.
HA. Yes, yes, definitely.
Wilhelmine: Ravenclaw, though insisted on being sorted into Gryffindor or Slytherin (whichever it was) to keep Fritz company
Awww. <3 In the AU where she's the younger sister, definitely. If we go with my take on Fritz and their canonical ages, though...he tries hard for Ravenclaw and gets Slytherin, ouch. :(
Joseph: Ravenclaw who thinks he's a Slytherin.
Yup on this one.
Voltaire: Ravenclaw gone bad or superintellectual Slytherin? You decide.
This is a hard one! (I hate that Slytherin = 'gone bad', but *muffles rant*.) I keep going back and forth. Where's the Odysseus house? Like Fritz, a strong Gryffindor streak--it takes a notable amount of courage to provoke all authorities at every turn and campaign for justice, even after being locked in the Bastille and fleeing for his life multiple times--but I wouldn't sort him in Gryffindor. Fritz I can see in Gryffindor more easily.
Let's say Ravenclaw, with Émilie, and Fritz is watching with resentment and envy from Slytherin. After Émilie graduates (we'll have to make her a bit older in this one), Fritz finally succeeds in his campaign to have Voltaire eat at the Slytherin table. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)
FW: Gryffindor gone bad who thinks he's a Hufflepuff
Oof. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.
Heinrich: Is Fritz' other self, so, see above.
Heinrich *behaves* like a Gryffindor with a strong Slytherin streak, but it's hard to say how much of their differences in actions were due to differences in opportunity. Switch their birth order and see how much their differences flip from one to the other.
Suhm: Ravenclaw
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
re: MT - my reasoning is that she was, hands down, ambitious. Jessen reminded me again - we don't have one but two ambassadors reporting before her father dies that the arch duchess had the absolute intention to rule. (As in, rule herself, not let her husband do it.) The British ambassador even marveled that she seemed to regarded Dad as the administrator of her future property who frustratingly refuses to let her have a look. And this just wasn't normal for her her day - these two ambassadors aside, everyone else, including her father, expected FS to rule and MT, since she clearly loved him, to be totally supportive of this. So while bravery is undoubtedly also a prominent trait - which was the earliest one Fritz would grant her as a good quality - I do think the hat would be torn.
I see Fritz as the Slytherin who argued with the Sorting Hat for several minutes that he was a Ravenclaw, the ULTIMATE RAVENCLAW, but the Hat refused to fall for it. "Green and silver table for you, kid."
LOL. Yes, absolutely plausible.
If we go with my take on Fritz and their canonical ages, though...he tries hard for Ravenclaw and gets Slytherin, ouch. :(
Sob, yes. Would fit with FW trying to keep them separate and secret meetings, though.
Re: Voltaire, by "Ravenclaw gone bad" I didn't mean Slytherin; Voltaire's various shady dealings and propensity to lie when caught haven't got much to do with ambition, but financial greed isn't really a factor in the HP novels. (Except for Lockhart maybe? Though there it's more vanity and fame.) By "Superintellectual Slytherin", otoh, I meant if one sees his ambition to be the foremost intellectual of the age as the dominant trait and emphasizes "foremost" and "intellectual" the same way. Agreed on his courage, of course!
Let's say Ravenclaw, with Émilie, and Fritz is watching with resentment and envy from Slytherin. After Émilie graduates (we'll have to make her a bit older in this one), Fritz finally succeeds in his campaign to have Voltaire eat at the Slytherin table. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)
*highfives* Yes yes. Though, Émilie doesn't have to be older - Voltaire must repeat a year (oh, the indignity!) because he collected so many punishments and was absent so often for various reasons. He still passed all the tests, but whoever was the headmaster insisted a point had to be made.
Agreed on Suhm. Heinrich: insists on Gryffindor because AW is there, despite the hat pointing out to him he might be unhappy there because it doesn't entirely suit him. At some point, it's time for the "what if Fritz was never born?" episode and Heinrich is appalled to find himself as one of the most ruthless Slytherins around.
(Ferdinand is a Hufflepuff; that's easy again.)
Catherine is of course Slytherin. Marie Antoinette is a not very bright but brave type of Gryffindor. Henri de Catt thinks he's a Ravenclaw and actually is one until constantly hanging out with Fritz awakens his inner Slytherin, not that he's a good one.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Agreed. It's a tossup for me too, with my current superficial knowledge of her.
Re: Voltaire, by "Ravenclaw gone bad" I didn't mean Slytherin;
Ah, okay. I guess I read a parallel in where there wasn't one, probably prompted by your other parallels.
Voltaire's various shady dealings and propensity to lie when caught haven't got much to do with ambition, but financial greed isn't really a factor in the HP novels.
The Malfoys are definitely into acquiring wealth and using it for political gain, but yes. Ambition isn't the only defining trait of Slytherin, though, at least not judging by the Sorting Hat songs. Slytherin's description in the song in the very first book goes:
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
Which fits Voltaire's shady deals and lies quite well.
Sob, yes. Would fit with FW trying to keep them separate and secret meetings, though.
Yes, that's EXACTLY what I was thinking, culminating in his imprisonment and most of all her marriage, which basically separated them for life, barring occasional meetings.
*highfives* Yes yes. Though, Émilie doesn't have to be older - Voltaire must repeat a year (oh, the indignity!) because he collected so many punishments and was absent so often for various reasons. He still passed all the tests, but whoever was the headmaster insisted a point had to be made.
HA! Alternatively, Émilie the inimitable manages to graduate early. (We do have to squash ages for this one anyway, as Voltaire is canonically 17 years older than Fritz and 12 older than Émilie!)
Heinrich: insists on Gryffindor because AW is there, despite the hat pointing out to him he might be unhappy there because it doesn't entirely suit him
I really like it. Headcanon!
At some point, it's time for the "what if Fritz was never born?" episode and Heinrich is appalled to find himself as one of the most ruthless Slytherins around.
Oh, yeah.
Henri de Catt thinks he's a Ravenclaw and actually is one until constantly hanging out with Fritz awakens his inner Slytherin, not that he's a good one.
AHAHAAAA, lolsob. Yes. This.
Next question! What do these people see in the Mirror of Erised?
Sadly, I think the "Well done, son" guy's might be cliched but true anyway.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Fritz - Yes, sadly, "Well done, Son" (it's canon, according to Catt's diary and the dream told therein), though I'd like to think at different points of his life he'd also see himself in the Paris opera with the people he loves alive and at his side.
Wilhelmine - sees herself in one of those Roman villas near Naples she's been visiting, only with Fritz instead of La Contamide, and they're both completely healthy and free of any ague. It's a warm evening and somewhere, someone is playing music.
MT - as a young woman ca. 1741 - 1750: Silesians cheering their true Queen's return while some Prussian guy is covered in the dust of the road somewhere in the back where no one even pays attention to him.
- at any time post 1765 - Franz Stefan alive again, holding out his hand to her as he did during their weddding.
EC: Fritz, who has asked her to come to him, greets her as she gets out of the carriage (no other Hohenzollern around! None! Also they are at Rheinsberg somehow) and says "Madame, welcome! Let's go into the gardens together, I think the strawberrys are ripe for plucking!"
Émilie: Newton is somehow alive, and she's debating with him, while the back and forth leads her to understand more and more.
Fredersdorf: he's found the philosopher's stone and presents Fritz with the potion that doesn't create gold, no, it's the water of life that makes both of them completely healthy and immortal. Because for the most part, Fredersdorf did have his ideal life, but he couldn't have born Fritz dying before him, and he would have liked to stick around because he was rather worried how Fritz would fare without him.
SD: No contest, and no, it's not Wilhelmine getting crowned as Queen of England. It's Fritz getting crowned as King of England somehow while his proud mother watches.
FW: as a young man: devoted SD and adoring kids welcome hard-working father home while a very tall man pulls out a chair for him and a voice from above says "this is my beloved son in which I take great joy".
in his late 30s and early 40s: he presents AW to the people as crown prince, and yes, the implication is that Fritz has died (in some way that doesn't implicate FW) while SD tells him how sorry she is and asks for his forgiveness. He is disturbed by seeing this in the mirror, but he does see it.
In his late 40s and up to age 51, when he dies: Reformed Fritz (minus the flute and Sanssouci and the witty pretties) says "I now understand that I owe it all to my dear father" while overviewing a splendid revue of (tall) Prussian soldiers at Spandau.
Henri de Catt: Fritz hands him a copy of the Histoire de mon temps, Catt opens it and sees the dedication to "my inspiration, always, Henri de Catt".
Lehndorff: Heinrich proposes. Marriage to cousin du Rosey and/or Fritz appointing him envoy to Great Britain would also be nice, but the first image the mirror of Erised presents to Lehndorff is definitely Heinrich asking for his hand in monogamous marriage.
Joseph: As a young man: he's just returning to Vienna from some victorious campaign, but not on horseback, on foot, and enthusiastic people accost him to tell him how well the new schools are going; no priest in sight; for some reason, he's wearing a blue uniform.
Last decade of his life: His daughter is alive again, and in his arms, and he's twirling her around.
Voltaire: he's sitting in a box seat, drinking coffee and talking to Émilie and Fritz at the same time while a play of his gets presented below them to thunderous applause, not in Paris, not in Berlin... in Constantinople. Lots of Turks, looking suspiciously like Prussians with darker moustaches, cheering "Vive Voltaire, vive la liberté!"
Katte: he and Fritz are on a boat on the Thames, on their way to somewhere, no idea where, with no one but Händel in pursuit.
(Händel actually hired some musicians to play his stuff on a boat in pursuit of newly crowned Uncle G2, since he was afraid that as G1 had favoured him, G2 might not.)
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
I'd like to think at different points of his life he'd also see himself in the Paris opera with the people he loves alive and at his side.
I hope so. I feel like being acclaimed (by Voltaire, let's be real) as a great poet is on his list--he might actually have wanted that more than he wanted to be a flutist, but his talents didn't quite line up with his wishes.
Fredersdorf: he's found the philosopher's stone and presents Fritz with the potion that doesn't create gold, no, it's the water of life that makes both of them completely healthy and immortal.
Awww, that's my fave. <3 Fredersdorf.
a very tall man pulls out a chair for him and a voice from above says "this is my beloved son in which I take great joy".
I don't know which of these made me laugh harder. Oh, FW.
Henri de Catt: Fritz hands him a copy of the Histoire de mon temps, Catt opens it and sees the dedication to "my inspiration, always, Henri de Catt".
HAAAAA, Henri de Catt, never change. :P
the first image the mirror of Erised presents to Lehndorff is definitely Heinrich asking for his hand in monogamous marriage.
Yups. Wait, we didn't sort Lehndorff! Obvious Hufflepuff is obvious?
Heinrich: *only into Slythindors*
and enthusiastic people accost him to tell him how well the new schools are going; no priest in sight; for some reason, he's wearing a blue uniform.
Joseph, I love your rational fanboying.
in Constantinople. Lots of Turks, looking suspiciously like Prussians with darker moustaches, cheering "Vive Voltaire, vive la liberté!"
I died. I saw "Constantinople" and I died.
Katte: he and Fritz are on a boat on the Thames, on their way to somewhere
<3
Neat Händel tidbit! I didn't know that.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
This Prince is amiable and truly deserving. He esteems your works and reads them as often as he an; he's not superstitious in the least. Consequently, he's an Emperor of a kind we haven't had in Germany since a long time. Neither he nor I like ignorants or barbarians; but this isn't a reason to kill them; if it was, the Turks would hardly be the only ones. How many nations have been dumbed down due to lacking enlightenment!
It's all very well to say that the Mohammadanian religion should pose a counterweight to the Greek religion and the Greek religion to the Catholic one. I'd love for you to be the counterweight. I'm always aggrieved at the idea that the feet of some pasha should walk through the ashes of Themistocles and of Alcibiades. This image makes me want to throw up as much as the one of Cardinals petting their doves at the tombs of Marcus Aurelius does.
Seriously, I don't understand why the Empress-Queen doesn't sell her household goods and equips her son, the Emperor, your friend - in as much as people of your rank can have friends - with her last Taler so he can go at the head of an army to Adrianopel and await Cathereine there. This enterprise strikes me as so natural, so easy, so beautiful that I can't understand why it has not yet been accomplished; of course your majesty would have received a good glass of wine out of this deal. Everyone has their chimera; this is mine.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Yups. Wait, we didn't sort Lehndorff! Obvious Hufflepuff is obvious?
Agreed, with the slight caveat that I‘d also buy Lehndorff as an unassuming Ravenclaw. He‘s not supersmart, and can be quite clueless emotionally, but his fondness for books and theatre seems to be a life long thing rather than something he only picked up as a young man wanting to advance at the court of a „philosopher thing“, and as opposed to people who shall remain Fritz and Heinrich, he‘s at least ready to watch occasionally plays in German and read German books now and then, even if he remains imprinted on French culture - he has an open, curious mind when it comes to the arts. What‘s more, he’s truly interested in people and curious about other countries. (Interested in history, too, see him reading about the Stuarts as a young man and going „WTF was going on with that family?“ or later in life making all those Liselotte letter excerpts in his notebook.) And if he‘s reading Rousseau‘s Confessions while being shaken by a 18th century carriage, he‘s able to focus to an admirable degree.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
(Wilhelmine <33 MT <33 EC, aw, breaks my heart <3 (no other Hohenzollern around! None! Also they are at Rheinsberg somehow also made me laugh)
that makes both of them completely healthy
Including mental health! Which of course he wouldn't have known about as a thing at the time, but I think he would have known that Fritz needed healing in some way that he might not have been able to articulate.
It's Fritz getting crowned as King of England somehow while his proud mother watches.
Man, this one makes me laugh and cringe.
while a very tall man pulls out a chair for him
HAHAHAHAHA but in general this one is so spot on.
for some reason, he's wearing a blue uniform.
LOL Joseph!
Last decade of his life
JOSEPH <3333
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Gustav: the dumbest Slytherin. Seriously.
LOLOLOL it's funny because it's true!
MT: Gryffindor with strong Slytherin streak or Slytherin with a strong Gryffindor streak? You decide.
I think MT is a lot like Harry in that she's got plenty of ambition and plenty of courage, and the Hat would be torn. (She's also, of course, completely unlike Harry in a lot of ways.) I also think that she'd argue with the Hat for Gryffindor, because she'd like to think of the "courage" part as the defining part of her personality, and would end up there for basically that reason. (Whether the whole "houses = defining personality traits" division even makes sense or is hella unhealthy, as you and mildred have said, is another matter entirely, of course! Just going by what we've seen in the books.)
Fritz: Ditto. Bravery, ambition and cunning all dominant traits.
I think Fritz would end up in Slytherin. LOLOLOL to y'all's discussion, yeah, I think after Wilhelmine gets sorted into Ravenclaw he's like "OBVIOUSLY I am the ULTIMATE RAVENCLAW, YOU MUST SORT ME WITH HER" and the Hat is all "naw."
At this point either the Hat is so fed up with him that it just yells, "SLYTHERIN!" or gives Fritz the choice between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Fritz remembers MT has been sorted into Gryffindor, is all "They let WOMEN in there!" and picks Slytherin himself.
(OK, OK, I know MT is younger. She seems older though! :P )
Voltaire: Ravenclaw gone bad or superintellectual Slytherin? You decide.
HAHAHAHA! Ooh, this is a hard one. I did know what you meant by "Ravenclaw gone bad," though, HEE. I do like the solution you guys have come up with where he's Ravenclaw with Emilie.
Heinrich: insists on Gryffindor because AW is there, despite the hat pointing out to him he might be unhappy there because it doesn't entirely suit him. At some point, it's time for the "what if Fritz was never born?" episode and Heinrich is appalled to find himself as one of the most ruthless Slytherins around.
Huh, I like it.
Joseph: Ravenclaw who thinks he's a Slytherin.
HAHAHAHA YES.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
I knew you'd appreciate my Gustav sorting. BTW, I noticed that when Gertrud Elisabeth Mara Schmeling writes about her fellow singers in her memoirs, she writes about the castratos (Porporino, Salimbene), never about the tenors. Now this might just be a sign of the (about to shift) musical landscape of the times - Castrato voices are still importannt when teenage Mozart writes his first operas, but in adult Mozart's operas, they're no longer an element around which the opera is built - but it could also be she shares your opinion on tenors!
MT arguing with the hat like Harry did because of how she sees herself, with the same result: quite likely, agreed.
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU
Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU