Frederick the Great discussion post 15

[cahn]

...I have nothing clever to say here, just really pleased this is still going :)
rheinsberg

Comments

Re: Winterfeldt

[selenak]

Congrats on the modern AUs!

re: the Winterfeldt fic, I saw, and yes, Winterfeldt is Bambi, but he's also not a lot in the story which is mainly Wilhelmine and AW interaction, which I'm all for - finally someone writes siblings other than me! -, and I liked it with a few caveats, which unfortunately include the premise. Since I guess the author would feel a comment including these would be me being a nitpicking jerk - it's something you can say to someone you know won't take it badly, but not otherwise - I'll tell you here:

1) No one called AW August. It was Wilhelm/Guillaume, Guille or Hula.

2) Wilhelmine thinking "but should I use this innocent child to help us out in this situation?" is right for her except for the fact that Mom already used this innocent child way earlier (i.e. when he was still a toddler) in a dicy situation with Dad, and Wilhelmine would have known that.

3) I could be wrong about this, but I think Winterfeldt didn't get to know Crown Prince Fritz until the mid 1730s, at which point scenes like the opening one didn't happen anymore, and it's no longer quite such a miracle that someone managed to get along with both FW and Crown Prince Fritz. Mind you, Grumbkow is credited with doing the pioneer work here in all the bios I've read (though again - I could be wrong), and Fritz didn't actually trust Grumbkow one bit, he just went along with mutually using each other and celebrated when the guy was dead, so Winterfeldt still gets to be special as Fritz undoubtedly truly liked and trusted him. Which brings me to

4) Me being me, I can't help but being constantly aware that the heartwarming climactic scene of innocent little AW, prompted by Wilhelmine, returning the incriminating hankerchief to Winterfeldt in front of FW who uses the opportunity to shame Fritz some more, and bambi Winterfeldt is full of love and sympathy for his abused crown prince gets a remix 27 years later starring Fritz in the role of abusive king, AW as the publicly abused crown prince, and Winterfeldt as the eager instrument of the public abuse. Now I can see why an author who likes both her Fritz and her Winterfeldt on the light side would avoid any foreshadowig of this, but to me at least a hint would actually have made an already moving story twistily great.