Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

[cahn]

Yuletide nominations:

18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)

Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti

Comments

Re: Early Fritz letter to Voltaire / Random Thoughts

[mildred_of_midgard]

Heh, I did read the Aeneid and I had no idea who they were! (Though it was a while ago now.)

I had a semester in college on the Aeneid, in which I read it in its entirety in English and about a third of it in Latin...twenty years ago. So I too had to look up Nisus and Euryalus last year. ;)

There is some satisfaction in reading about things the way they ought to have happened like Wilhelmine saying to FW "But it is better for you to die than for justice to leave this world."

And for that as well as FW's stroke I am forever indebted to our wonderful author! Seriously, I sat up straight when I read that and started yelling out loud. I still call it differently broken, though. ;)

yessssss like everyone else is saying, all hail [personal profile] selenak and getting us all into the siblings! <3333333 Honestly this is when I started to get really emotionally involved -- I was having fun before, but the dysfunctional and complicated sibling dynamics really sold the whole thing to me.

I'm still trying to figure out why I'm not more emotionally invested in them. Intellectually, they're very interesting, but for some reason, my feels haven't latched on. I wondered if it might be that I prefer functional to dysfunctional sibling relationships? But then I remembered exceptions, and so idek. I definitely wouldn't want to do without the glorious Hohenzollern dynamics in this fandom, regardless. I have to say that when selenak started fleshing out the whole family for me, that's when Fritz and company started to feel like three-dimensional people with an actual context.

I KNOWWWWWW. I feel like when these guys tell me stories, I spend 1/3 of the time feeling sorry for him, 1/3 of the time impressed by him, and the rest of the time shaking my head and going, "Oh Fritz." (And not in a good way.)

That sounds about right. Though in my case, I have to admit "Oh, Fritz" is said with a lot of sympathy. Like, "Oh, Fritz, you put the 'problematic' in 'problematic fave'," or, "Oh, Fritz, I'm sorry everything was so terrible. Please get therapy." But maybe that's just because I'm a Fritz stan of old. ;)

Fritz-adjacent dynamics

[cahn]

IDK, I wonder if it's because you are so attached to Fritz? Like, part of the reason the dysfunctional sibling dynamics really grab me is that I'm really not particularly attached to Fritz, so the fact that a lot of these dynamics involve him behaving badly is a plus for me rather than a minus, and Heinrich (whom I do love) gets a bit of the woobie dynamic. Whereas it's probably not nearly as emotionally interesting to have one's fave being the one behaving awfully. (For similar reasons, I'm not really all that emotionally invested in the wives... at least not yet. Except possibly for Louise, because of that letter of Amalie's. But even so, my short-term attachment to Heinrich isn't at all to be compared to your long-term attachment to Fritz, so I think it would be very possible; selenak's fic got me invested in Voltaire, after all, which I didn't think was possible given my attachment to Emilie :P )

Re: Fritz-adjacent dynamics

[mildred_of_midgard]

Maybe? But for some reason, the feels about his relationship with Wilhelmine, even when they were young, won't come either, and that generally doesn't involve Fritz behaving badly (not until much later). And then again, I can't get the Fredersdorf feels either! Despite trying hard for both of them. And both those relationships are normally totally my jam! And then I'm into relationships that normally aren't, like Katte and Keith.

Idk, this is just a very topsy-turvy fandom for me. *shrug*