And let's not forget the delights of getting your guts drawn out with glowing pliers, which I seem to recall was one of those things FW said Katte deserved if not for his family.
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
Mildred, you want to know why I find Fritz more congenial than FW even though they can both be terrible? This kind of thing is why! (Well, also, because Fritz can be charming and FW just can't, at least not in a way I recognize.)
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
Yeah, like Catherine the Great said in her memoirs, he had qualities to respect as a king but none that made him lovable as a human being...
For all that Fritz's terribleness resulted in a great deal more suffering on a large scale (a million is a statistic), he also had positives for me to latch onto. Which is why I'm all "My (problematic) FAVE!" to Fritz and "DIE DIE DIE" to FW, unfair as that may be.
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
I did not forget that, but what I misremembered was it that fell under the list of things Grumbkow convinced FW he couldn't legally do. Now that I look it up again, the pliers were totally legal and used (including against Potsdam Giants) once the party was found guilty; it was the use of torture during the interrogation that was illegal. So...I can only conclude that there's a good chance Peter would have been torn apart by red-hot pliers before being hanged.
RUN PETER RUN
You know, it occurred to me a while back that maybe Peter hanging out in a room in Dublin reading books for years without socializing much was only partly because he enjoyed that sort of thing, and partly because he was still worried about being caught. Since that was why he had left London in the first place.
I'm glad that when he came back to London, circa 1734, he considered it safe to hang out in society with intellectuals, and that the stay in Portugal was for the climate and not because only that was far enough away to be out of FW's reach.
ETA: Also. Do you think FW would have made Fritz watch?
Edited 2020-10-05 02:18 (UTC)
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
That depends. Has Katte already been executed? Or would Peter be executed first? Because I think FW would leave it at one example, seeing as Fritz then gets a breakdown and everyone at Küstrin assures FW he's learned his lesson. (So to speak.) I don't think he'd have gone through the trouble of sending Peter to Küstrin if Katte has already died, because he needed to tell himself he was harsh but fair, not gratitiously cruel. Also executing Peter in Berlin as the mutinous/deserting Potsdam Giants at the start of the year had been would serve the purpose of discouraging desertion among the army per se.
If Peter gets captured early on before Katte's execution, otoh, all bets are off. Even FW letting the tribunal's judgment on Katte stand (i.e. a life sentence, amounting to "however long FW lives" sentence), because he could have had a boyfriend executed in front of Fritz without grieving one of his trusted and loyal milistary an (Hans Heinrich) and grieving the only guy from his father's administration he really liked (Grandpa Wartensleben).
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
because he could have had a boyfriend executed in front of Fritz without grieving one of his trusted and loyal milistary an (Hans Heinrich) and grieving the only guy from his father's administration he really liked (Grandpa Wartensleben).
:(
Yet another "break it differently" AU.
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
Oh nooooo :( Heh, the funny thing is that I wouldn't have minded Peter Keith dying instead of Katte nearly as much if mildred hadn't convinced me through fic that he was really cool :P
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Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
Mildred, you want to know why I find Fritz more congenial than FW even though they can both be terrible? This kind of thing is why! (Well, also, because Fritz can be charming and FW just can't, at least not in a way I recognize.)
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
For all that Fritz's terribleness resulted in a great deal more suffering on a large scale (a million is a statistic), he also had positives for me to latch onto. Which is why I'm all "My (problematic) FAVE!" to Fritz and "DIE DIE DIE" to FW, unfair as that may be.
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
RUN PETER RUN
You know, it occurred to me a while back that maybe Peter hanging out in a room in Dublin reading books for years without socializing much was only partly because he enjoyed that sort of thing, and partly because he was still worried about being caught. Since that was why he had left London in the first place.
I'm glad that when he came back to London, circa 1734, he considered it safe to hang out in society with intellectuals, and that the stay in Portugal was for the climate and not because only that was far enough away to be out of FW's reach.
ETA: Also. Do you think FW would have made Fritz watch?
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
If Peter gets captured early on before Katte's execution, otoh, all bets are off. Even FW letting the tribunal's judgment on Katte stand (i.e. a life sentence, amounting to "however long FW lives" sentence), because he could have had a boyfriend executed in front of Fritz without grieving one of his trusted and loyal milistary an (Hans Heinrich) and grieving the only guy from his father's administration he really liked (Grandpa Wartensleben).
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions
because he could have had a boyfriend executed in front of Fritz without grieving one of his trusted and loyal milistary an (Hans Heinrich) and grieving the only guy from his father's administration he really liked (Grandpa Wartensleben).
:(
Yet another "break it differently" AU.
Re: The Braunschweig Perspective : First Impressions