cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)

Entry tags:

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)

ETA: Whoops, I missed my cue -- this might as well be the next discussion post, I guess! :)

This is about the fic I didn't author (I have another reveals post for the fics I did author).

So my goal this Yuletide was NOT to write any historical fandom (because hard!) and just enjoy the excellent stuff that other people wrote. And... that sort of happened? I didn't end up authoring anything history-intensive? Buuuuut I ended up spending a lot more time than I did on any of my own fics working with

mildred_of_midgard on her fic, which she was worried about being able to pull off because she had had this completely insane idea to write a long casefic about Frederick the Great that every time I turned around had another twist put in :P :) She supplied me with what we called a "rough opal in matrix" bus pass casefic, and I cut away the matrix that remained and in some cases carved the opal -- that is to say, writing additional text for some of the scenes, what we liked to call "putting in feels," and in at least two cases entirely rewriting and/or restructuring the scene she'd written. She didn't always keep what I wrote (which we'd agreed upon in the beginning), but when she did (which was most of the time :) ) she then went in and rewrote/restructured what I put in to wordsmith (some of the words I gave her were really rough) and match her style, adding even more scenes -- that is, polishing it up and adding some gold and diamonds -- and voila, a beautiful pendant, I mean, story :)

I'm really proud of it and also it was really fun and also what I could handle this year, especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard and also wrote all the parts involving actual history or subtle AU before I was brought in so I didn't actually have to know historical stuff (though I guess I will never forget the battle of Leuthen now), and took full responsibility for how the whole thing turned out, so all I had to do was be like "Here, I'll write some rough feels for you for this scene!" The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) ) She started jokingly calling me her "other self," to which I replied that it was with 1000% less angst and frustration -- as Frederick the Great's brother was his "other self" (which actually comes up in the fic) that he could trust to do all kinds of competent things, but they had a relationship that was, um, fraught? radioactive? Whereas this was just fun :)

Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author, but hey, ~3000 words is a respectable Yuletide fic length :)

Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small (30384 words) by mildred_of_midgard
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Anna Amalie von Preußen & Wilhelmine von Preußen, Anna Amalie von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen, Wilhelmine von Preußen & Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia
Characters: Anna Amalie von Preußen (1723-1787), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758), Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1732-1780), Wilhelmine von Hesse-Kassel (1726-1808), August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Alcmene 1 | Frederick the Great's Italian Greyhound, Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Suicide, Alternate Universe - Dark, Siblings, Canon-Typical Violence, Mystery, Tide of History Challenge
Summary:

January 1758. Prince William is dead, some say of a broken heart. Frederick wants to absolve himself of blame for William's death. Henry schemes to end the Third Silesian War on his terms. Amalie and Wilhelmine team up to find out what really happened to their brother. Alcmene just wants to be told she's a good dog.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

if you wanted to make a sexy soap opera, you could definitely do worse than August the Strong

Very true. Mind you, because of its reputation as the big GDR prestige tv effort, I was expecting v.v. serious tv, not trashy fun, but I'm all for it! I'm also getting a kick out of imagining the scriptwriters embracing all the trashiness in a way they never could have if they'd been given a contemporary subject. Although even within that parameter, some of the scriptwriting choices are weird, such as:

uh, real life meeting of Anna and August seems much cooler than what they actually went with??

Indeed. Not only was the rl first meeting cooler but intensely visual and thus ideal for tv, one should think. Unless they had already blown all the budget (the Countess Cosel story was filmed last, wiki says, though it takes place first) and couldn't afford faking a 18th century palace burning. Then again, wiki also says the beauty competition thing hails straight from the novel and has no basis in history, so I guess you can blame the 19th century novelist.

FW: only has two scenes in this entire series, yes manages to be instantly recognizable and ic in both. :) And yeah, I totally buy that even ambitious pages in Saxony and Poland would have had his number at this point.

"Leutnant Keith" being two boyfriends and a page in one person: I guess given the focus of this show on Saxons and Prussians really becoming relevant only in the last two eps, it's understandable, but it still feels weird if you know anything about history.

Plans to invade and take Silesia by people not Fritz: well, I guess both Poland and Saxony do in fact share borders with Silesia, but Sulkowski planning to take it is entirely invented (by either the tv show or the original novelist). Yes, the Austrian army was in decline, but the Habsburgs still had not only their territories but the entire HRE to draw on (since this was before MT's Dad had died, his rule was uncontested). Such an action would have made August III. an outlaw all the other German princes would have been obliged to go against. And the Saxon army really wasn't nothing much, not least because all the money went elsehwere. If you don't have a completely modern, drilled and well equipped army at your disposal like Fritz did in 1740, in a situation where MT's rule hasn't been accepted yet, it can't be done.

It is, however, in tandem with this show letting the Saxons think of everything first - Silesia, and later the Diplomatic Revolution. (It's true that Brühl was involved in some of the negotiations, but it definitely hadn't been his brainchild.)

...this would seriously distract me, sort of like when I watched Hamilton and the guy playing Hamilton was taller than anyone else in the cast, like, apparently it is totally OK with me that they're all POCs but the height thing is so weird??

I know. It kept bugging me. The Fritz actor in general is taller than most cast members. Then again: Peter O'Toole is way, way, taller than rl T.E. Lawrence was in Lawrence of Arabia, and I never had a problem there, possibly because I first saw the movie before learning about TEL.

The ending is weird. I mean, Brühl just disappears out of the story after he and August III. flee to Warsaw, and we never even learn what became of the Countess Brühl. (Since they don't have children in this miniseries as opposed to rl, the miniseries doesn't have to cover them.) This after having been the villain protagonist for several episodes. So after the two young lovers are reunited and pledged to each other, you get this montage obout the Triumphs Of Fritz (with one defeat in betweeen, which he bears in stoic manliness) and then a sentence to justify the title, and we're done.

What I found interesting from a contemporary history pov is what the series shows, and doesn't show of its locations. Because Dresden in the 1980s didn't look like it does now; a lot of reconstruction and restoriation only happened after the German reunification. So you see some bits and pieces of the royal palaces, but it's no coincidence that the only palace you see completely from the outside Moritzburg, far away from Dresden and in a lake, so there's no WWII damage or modern buildings to cover. And the outside of Sanssouci looks far older and neglected than it does now; clearly they hadn't done a paint job in a while. Not to mention that today, the vineyard is a vineyard again, whereas it wasn't in GDR times (too expensive). What we see of the inside of the Sanssouci palaces is in fine condition, by contrast, though I note the series cheats a bit now and then and lets Fredersdorf and Fritz talk in a room inthe Neue Kammern, not in the main palace itself, while giving the impression we're in the main building. But like I said, you can tell the director and producers decided to milk that permission to film there for all it was worth, and to hell with the fact Fritz would have been with the army in Saxony after the first two or so scenes he has.

But the dogs were really well done. They're not just around running after him; he's shown more than once coddling or stroking them while being a Machiavellian bastard to everyone else, and they're the correct size. I haven'd made a screencap yet because I've never done this before, and I don't know whether it's possible with an Amazon Prime video, but I will try to capture the dog bits and make you and Mildred go awwww.

ETA: Alas. I tried, and I did get screenshots, but it seems they only show black if you do it from Amazon Prime.

Son of ETA: Aha! But the series is also on one of our public broadcast channels and archives, and I just suceeded in a screenshot. Will try further.

Edited 2021-01-04 09:50 (UTC)

Okay, I achieved screencaps. Have some illustrations of the Fritzian parts of the above.

Here are Fritz and Fredersdorf in front of Sanssouci

Here they are in a room supposedly Fritz' audience room. Actually, now that I can look closer at the screen caps, I can see it's not even in the Neue Kammern, it's in the Neuer Palais, which definitely did not exist yet in early 1756 when this is supposed to take place: the great ball room. (Note the Silesian marble!)

Fredersdorf hires a new spy, OC Max de Simoni:

Have sex for Prussia!

Simoni uncovered the Diplomatic Revolution. This is somewhat worrying for our Prussian duo:

For all I make fun of this series and it's massive liberties, they did do their research. Fritz is showing snuffing repeatedly, and note the dogs in the background here:

Now this is a rather good approximation of how Fritz' study might have looked like before it was renovated in his successor's time. This is the scene when he's duetting with hot Swiss spy Simoni.

Since Fritz has taken all the Saxon soldiers and pressed them into his army, August III. sends a messenger asking whether he can at least have his honor guard back when he retreats to Warsaw. Fritz, somewhat preoccupied with his dog, says no.

My dog is more interesting than your message

Now for the big one, the attempted assassination by chocolate scene somewhat later. First, leisure time chez Fritz:

Glasow puts the fateful cup of chocolate on the desk.

Lemme have some chocolate!

The King's love could be deadly, is all I'm saying.

This totally explains the Scourging of Saxony thereafter:

Lastly, I couldn't resist at least one screen cap not featuring our lot but Brühl (in the blue coat) and August III at Königstein, having just received the news the Austrians got defeated at Lobovitz which means they're screwed:

Yay, go you! It's awesome watching your German improving. *applauds*

Mine is improving too, at the cost of salon participation, and I won't be able to provide proactive German commentary in the immediate future, so if you're going to do it now...sorry. :(

The bookseller is supposed to send me another copy of Orieux in English; who knows if/when it will arrive, but I'll keep you posted.

I guess both Poland and Saxony do in fact share borders with Silesia, but Sulkowski planning to take it is entirely invented (by either the tv show or the original novelist)

Is it giving them too much credit to speculate that they might have been inspired by the brief Silesian conquest by Saxony a century earlier, during the Thirty Years' War? (When military conditions were entirely different than in the early 18th century.)

ETA: Alas. I tried, and I did get screenshots, but it seems they only show black if you do it from Amazon Prime.

Odd, I've never had problems screenshotting Amazon Prime and was able to do it just now as a test. Googling indicates that it's not possible from an Android phone, but is possible from any web browser. Glad you were able to get us the screenshots from another source, though!

Awesome screenshots, thank you so much!

I feel obliged to point out what Cahn pointed out (and what I had been thinking) when the smell of opium repels her in "Grind": "Well, good, Alcmene, chocolate isn't good for dogs anyway." :P

Per internet search results: "While rarely fatal, chocolate ingestion can result in significant illness."

Poor unnamed doggie. :(

For comparison, Fritz with furry, fearsome beasts (taken from Amazon Prime "Ekaterina" video):

Since they're a Russian breed (borzoi), I imagine they were easier for the producers to obtain. But it's still extremely wrong!!

I must stop here, alas. Am still following with glee and hope to be back in the near future.

Edited 2021-01-04 15:03 (UTC)

Re: chocolate - I know, which is why in one of my stories, Fritz regretfully declines letting his dog drink from it. Bad scriptwriters!

BTW, I still can't get screeshots from Amazon Prime, not from any of my pc browsers, not on my Ipad. Maybe it's a regional thing due to European copyright law? Then again, I can get screenshots from our public broadcast tv. Anyway - the fearsome beasts in place of the Italian Greyhounds are lol-worthy.

Yeah, it occurred to me it might be a German/European thing. *shrug*

I know, I was thinking of your story as well! Let's hope 18th century Fritz knew that chocolate was bad for dogs (I'm not sure when that was discovered).

Anyway - the fearsome beasts in place of the Italian Greyhounds are lol-worthy.

And so shaggy!

Boring work meeting multitasking ETA: Also, I don't know whether opium actually repels dogs (googling says it smells/tastes strongly bitter), but I deliberately left it ambiguous whether a second, unidentified poison (in the snuff) was involved, because mystery author copout. ;)

Edited 2021-01-04 16:47 (UTC)

I spent my holidays not really working for Uni and instead found some... stuff while browsing the online parts of the university library.

Namely, I found a pdf of that "Katte - Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen" stage play from 1914 (my university apparently owns three physical copies as well and I just want to ask WHY). I don't know if any of you have read it already, but it's... wild. It is also an earlier example of the "Katte was totes in love with Wilhelmine"-trope found in the musical and has his last words be "Long live the King"... And SD is actually all for Wilhelmine marrying Fritz of Bayreuth and only worried for her happiness. Some interesting decisions were made.

I could try to make a post summing everything up for you if that is of interest. It is definitely fun, in a weird way :'D

Another strange thing I've found, luckily not in my university library, is that there is, apparently, a digital anime trading card game where you can collect people from history, mythology, and literature in... anime-girl-form. Among the people featured as anime-girl trading cards are Fritz, Voltaire, Peter the Great and Stalin. Stalin has bunny ears. I do not wish to type that sentence ever again.

Away from weird stuff and onto more scholarly things: I got myself an exhibition catalogue from a 1994 Rheinsberg exhibition on portraits of Heinrich. It has some fun images that I have not necessarily found online (including a carricature which I love dearly) as well as contemporary descriptions of him and is quite fun to read. I could try to scan/photograph it and send you a pdf version, if you'd like that :D

On behalf of all of us, YES to all of the above. :D

(Or at least performing in it as a child.)

Per Wikipedia,

In 1720, following the example of Louis XIV, Villeroy had the young Louis dance in public in two ballets at the Tuileries Palace on 24 February 1720, and again in The Ballet des Elements on 31 December 1721. The shy Louis evidently did not enjoy the experience; he never danced in another ballet.

Edited 2021-01-05 02:06 (UTC)

What Mildred said. ;) Especially the catalogue.

Re: "Lang lebe der König" in a Katte drama from 1914 - the date is almost too perfect, because that's the mentality which got us into WWI all over. (I'm now imagining the ending of Heinrich Mann's novel Der Untertan, also published in 1914 before the publisher had to stop because of war censorship, and the film version by Wolfgang Staudte culminating in a mightly thunderstorm blowing all the Wilhelminians away while "The Subject" Diederich Heßling clings to holding his Hohenzollern-praising nationalistic speech...

Otoh, I wouldn't be surprised if the Katte/Wilhelmine trope shows up even earlier than that. Not only does historical drama love its invented love stories in general, but the male code of behavior changed in the 19th century so much (no more 18th century emo, and definitely no more high heels and colorful fashion!) while simultanously the cult of Fritz reigned along with censorship that I could see people coming up with this to premptively remove the slightest suspicion that the big national hero could have been romantically attached to a man (and vice versa). I mean, we're talking about a country where Voltaire's memoirs weren't allowed to be reprinted until after WWI. (They had been translated into German and printed in 1784 already, but post Napoleonic Prussia and then Germany certainly did not allow any more of this French slander of The GREAT to be sold.)

Alright, here's the kind of crappy pdf that I managed to create with my phone camera and an app that I have cursed about 200 times since I downloaded it this morning:
"Prinz Heinrich von Preußen in Bildnissen seiner Zeit"

It should be legible (mostly), although the image quality could be better.

I originally got this catalogue with the idea that I might be able to write about Heinrich's superior taste in wigs for an art history class I'm taking, but, according to my professor, wigs are the topic that is pretty much the most difficult to research with the art history library being closed. Soooo that didn't work out, but I am still very happy with my purchase :D One of my personal favourites is this "caricature by an unknown artist", I think it's rather charming:
images

Almost as charming as Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun writing how she "can barely describe how ugly [she] thought [Heinrich] was".

I'll probably try to properly scan the image parts of the catalogue at some point, but until then I can also just send you better images outside of the pdf if the need arises ^^

Ha, good to know about Bentinck. Hee, Lehndorff :D

Ah, thank you for the Gatten/Gatte; I saw those in the German and was a little confused.

And for the explanation of "Schatulle" -- google translated it as "box," not treasure box, which is why I was confused :)

OK, so, this kind of confused me even more so than the height -- I do know from mildred's notes for "Counterpoint" that at the time Fritz and Fredersdorf met, Fritz was kind of filling out and Fredersdorf was not particularly stout, so I sort of imagined that was always true?? but maybe not?? but anyway, because of this, the screenshot where Fritz is the tall skinny one and Fredersdorf is the short stout one was extremely confusing for my brain

That being said, I'm pretty impressed by how much the actor actually looks like Fritz, so I guess I can see why they went with the tall guy (lol, you know what I'm thinking of typing that)

I laughed pretty hard at the "Have sex for Prussia!" and the beatific look on Fredersdorf's face, excellent screenshotting :D

This totally explains the Scourging of Saxony thereafter:

I laughed so hard at the look you captured on Fritz's face here that my 10-year-old demanded to know what I was laughing at and I showed it to her; she also thought it was funny (although she just knows Frederick the Great as "that person mom seems to talk about a lot for some reason")

Aw, thank you! That's great. And LOL on everyone being so relentlessly down on Heinrich's looks (once he's past 40 anyway). Somewhere in my mind, Lehndorff mutters he stands by his assessment that Heinrich in riding pants is "beautiful as an angel". ;) (Seriously though, that assessment alone against everyone else's opinion shows how smitten Lehndorff was.)

Yes please! :D

...I... think I might need to see these anime-girl trading cards, now that I know they exist. Wow.

Re: Fritz and Fredersdorf's respective figures - actually your original impression was correct, going by what we know. Fritz didn't become thin until the 7 Years war, where he really had a major weight loss. (He remained thin thereafter.) Fredersdorf, otoh, if you compare the two portraits we have, the one from my icon to this one from later in his life seems to have lost some weight, if anything, though nothing as dramatic as Fritz pre 7 Years War to Fritz post 7 Years War. Meaning: in early 1756, when these scenes take place, their weights are wrong for the characters. But yes, the Fritz actor does look very much like him anyway.

I'm glad my evil intentions in making these screenshots worked, and made you laugh. :)

omg this is so great :D I'm glad you scanned the caricature separately, that's really charming :D Especially in conjunction with the more formal portraits, where everything is presumably rather smoothed out, so I assume the truth is somewhere in between the two :D

(I also love that they included a pic of the obelisk! Because OF COURSE.)

And even a couple of portraits of Mina/Wilhelmine! (whyyyyy does everyone have to have the same name, for a minute I thought that was Wilhelmine-the-sister instead of Wilelmine-the-wife and was like, this looks different than other pics I've seen? But then I read the caption more carefully) I don't think I'd seen a pic of Mina before. Even allowing for portrait flattery she does look awfully charming.

It's interesting to me that the caricature and a couple of the other more informal artworks show him with a big nose, but the portraits don't. Is this a function of him actually having a (relatively) big nose (though I assume not as big as the caricatured one :) ) but the portraits minimizing it?

(My German is still not good enough to read this properly (besides puzzling out captions, lol) -- maybe once I'm done with Lehndorff -- so feel free to tell me about anything else cool from the text :D )

But everything was abeautiful at the ballet....

(And here one would think FW and Louis XV had nothing in common!)

Ask and you shall receive. Do not sue me for possible damages. I would have had you guess which one's which, but sadly there are names on the cards.

First: the Russians

images

"A Russian enlightened monarch. As a curious person, she is a reformist and tries to renovate anything that she thinks is necessary. Sometimes, being too curious, she disassemble things. So, it is wise to hide valuables from her."

images

"The World strongest dictator and Mother of Soviet Union. Her child-like physique raised many doubts from other people. But those who badmouthed about her, ended up being purged by her."

images

"An empress of Russia who is encouraging cultural renaissance. She became an empress by driving out the old, incompetent regime. By a surprising radical reformation policy, she takes care of people and tries hard to make Russia a powerful nation. But, this is followed by a growing counter force, which worries her."

Now Voltaire...

images

"An eccentric philosopher, known for her practice of Tolerancia. She is cheerful and welcoming to everyone. Wild and rebellious at heart, her defiant stance against the system garnered many followers."

And the the one and only...
images

"An enlightened monarch who likes to lead her military forces. As a boyish queen looking natural in her military uniform, she’s always energetic like a man. With a mission to protect her country from neighbours, she’s interested in modern military technology."

Honestly, if they looked a bit more like their historical counterparts it would have been a lot more fun. Why did they not attempt to make Peter the Great kawaii? Why not give Stalin big sparkly eyes?

Another picture that I could not stop laughing about is the Swedish one. You could go skiing on that wig. That wig is higher than the highest hills of Brandenburg.

Since we already had the nose-minimizing going on with Fritz, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened with Heinrich. Although they definitely had different noses, since nobody with eyes would describe Fritz's nose as "upturned".

Among the "descriptions of his looks and character" is one that describes a typical day in the life of 1790s Heinrich, including an outfit that I need to draw:

"His dress was French and cut in the style of the 80s, in summer it was made of silk or satin, in winter of fine woolen cloth that was embroidered or decorated with braids, he was always wearing trousers or stockings of silk and shoes with big buckles. A pair of enormous watchchains was hanging down in the front, combined with a flower-patterned waistcoat, big diamond rings on the fingers, a cane with a golden head and a long silken cane-band attached to it, a small, triangular hat with a steel- or, on celebration days, a diamond pin, in his hand a golden snuffbox and some sort of small binoculars in his pocket, a powdered wig with curls and a small braid; in the mornings, apparently, a cadogan imitating his own hair, and, of course, jabots and cuffs"

Later he is described wearing "a wig with curlers and a big round hat". I love him so much.

Right? But Horowski confirms! I just reached that part of the book this morning, and indeed, Louis XV developed "a lifelong aversion to ballet" due to his tutor's attempt to turn him into a clone of Louis XIV.

FW: See? You *can* traumatize your kids ~~by trying to turn them into a copy of you~~ with ballet!
Fritz: *cough*

Edited 2021-01-05 18:48 (UTC)

Because the 2012 musical is just the tip of the iceberg.

To get some dates in: “Katte – Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen“ was published in Leipzig in 1914 and premiered on stage in Dresden on November 6th of the same year. The author, Hermann Burte, was a raging Nazi and this play is apparently one of his less bad works. It is, supposedly, a tragedy and it is obvious that Burte has read some primary sources, like Wilhelmine’s memoirs and Katte’s farewell letters, both of which he quotes verbatim at times. He just decides to ignore some parts.

Act 1 (of five)

We begin our journey in the city palace of Berlin with Crown Prince Friedrich and Princess Wilhelmine playing the flute and lute respectively. Fräulein von Sonsfeld is “in the background”, doing God knows what.

Enter: Our Hero.

Katte informs the siblings and the audience about the newest developments in the English marriage endeavour and is not above using long pauses for dramatic effect:

Katte: “Sir Hotham is…”
Fritz: (after a long, dramatic pause) “…Yes?”
Katte: “Leaving…”
Wilhelmine & Fritz: “Leaving!”
Katte: “Because England wanted Grumbkow fired…”
Fritz: “Fired!”
Katte: “Because he is, allegedly, on the Austrian payroll…”
Wilhelmine: “He is.”
Katte: “And they have found letters....”
Fritz: “Letters?!”
Katte: “In which he talks shit about the King.”

We’ve got a very eloquent Crown Prince, haven’t we?
Katte tells the siblings that Grumbkow is still FW’s bff because Seckendorff – Grumbkow’s friend, their enemy (yes, he says that. Just in case Fritz and Wilhelmine forgot.) – has gotten his hands on the letters that Fritz wrote to England, so Grumbkow is fine and Fritz is in deep shit and should write to Hotham asap.

But who will deliver the letter? Katte will! And he’ll bring Hotham’s answer too, so Fritz grabs his hand for a moment and, presumably looking deep into his eyes in a very friendly manner, tells him that he would be nothing without his dear friend’s services, to which the dear friend replies that his services would be nothing without Fritz’s friendship. They use “Du” for each other btw. Not that that will be important for too long.

Fritz leaves, Katte, Wilhelmine and Fräulein von Sonsfeld lurking in the shadows remain.

Wilhelmine: “So, Katte, why are you acting as my brother’s mailman?”
Katte: “Oh, you know, I’m just somewhat bored.”
Wilhelmine: “Oh Katte, you’re so brave for not selling my brother out to our dad.“
Katte: “There are other responsibilities than those of a soldier’s oath. Different ones. I love your brother; that I am his friend is my greatest reason for happiness on this earth, the meaning of my existence even. In a very heterosexual way.”
Wilhelmine: “If you weren’t here, he’d find someone else.”
Katte: “Actually, I am pretty sure that I am the most fitting person in the entire Prussian army to be Fritz’s friend. I mean, look at me, I’m great. I’m musically inclined, I know languages, I have travelled, I was a law student, which is somehow relevant, and also the King trusts me like no other, for some reason.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re pretty vain.”
Katte: “No, no! I am also ugly as sin! Have I mentioned that I do not have a girlfriend? Also, for some reason, I get a line about being some kind of grand puppeteer who likes manipulating the people around him, isn’t that heroic.”

The only person Katte is not manipulating is FW, but FW likes him anyways and even had a chat with him asking “Why does my son not love me, Katte? Make him love me, Katte!” and Katte is now convinced that dear old dad is actually the sweetest person, deep deep inside. Wilhelmine has never considered that before.

Fritz returns with the finished letter, Katte leaves.

The Parents show up and have a fight about whether Wilhelmine should just become a nun and after that it’s time for some classic FW (the sweetest person, deep deep inside) yelling at his son, throwing musical instruments across the room and threatening violence. After he tells Fritz that he will accompany him on his travels, Katte returns and FW and he are overjoyed to see each other:

FW: “Katte!”
Katte: “Your Majesty!”
FW: “Your father is Good Prussian Noble Hans Heinrich von Katte and your grandfather on your mother’s side is Good Prussian Noble Alexander Hermann von Wartensleben?!”
Katte: “Indeed!”
FW: “Great! Be a Good Prussian Noble like them! Do you know what that means?”
Katte: “Predestination sucks?”
FW: “Exactly! Also your collar is a centimetre too high, fix that.”

Fritz is told that he will be taking “the younger Keith” as a page for the duration of the journey south and is kind of bummed out that Katte will not be his page, for some reason.

The Parents leave, the other three remain.

Katte, ever FW’s biggest fan, remarks that his Majesty was very merciful and gets himself an earful of Hohenzollern-sarcasm with Wilhelmine saying that the King just wanted to lock her up in a convent for life a little bit and Fritz marvelling at the fact that his face is still intact and his hair was not ripped out, a merciful King indeed.

We have now reached talk of escaping. Wilhelmine is not into it and asks Katte to please say something wise.

Katte: “There are three ways to fix this.”
Fritz: “Running, leaving and getting away?”
Katte: “No. Wilhelmine marrying the Duke of Weißenfels…”
Wilhelmine: “Fuck you AND the Duke of Weißenfels!”
Katte: “We could also sacrifice your mom, since this is all totally just her fault…”
Fritz: “True, but no, so let’s run.”
Katte: “Alright, but please don’t leave before you reach Wesel, it won’t be safe.”
Fritz: “How about no? You won’t order me around, I’m leaving whenever I want to leave.”
Katte: “Then I’m not going.”
images

prinzsorgenfrei: Herr Müller-Lüdenscheidt!
Wilhelmine: “Listen to the nice man, Fritz, wait until Wesel.”
Fritz: “I won’t promise you shit, actually?? Do you want to imprison me like my father is doing already??”
Katte & Wilhelmine: “We literally just want you to not die.”
Fritz: “Well, I won’t promise you shit! See you around!”

And he leaves. This is the last thing we’ll see of him until the execution scene, so I hope you didn’t get too used to his presence. Wilhelmine tells Katte to run after him and work his magic as a master puppeteer, Katte says “Keith is an unreliable Scotsman, so if Fritz leaves before Wesel he’s absolutely fucked and so are we. See you around, your Highness!” and runs after Fritz.

Act 2

We are in Monbijou, where Frau von Kamecke and Fräulein von Sonsfeld are talking about possible ghost sightings during the last few days, especially a commotion that happened in the evening of the 11th of August. Fr. von Kamecke is convinced that shit is about to go down, Frl. von Sonsfeld is not.

Kamecke: “So, in any case, we’re all gonna die. Oh no, here comes your Princess – YES, a BEAUTIFUL celebration, NOTHING TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT! Oh shit, was that an owl outside!? Do you know what that means!?”
Wilhelmine: “That owls scream when they see light.”

Fr. von Kamecke leaves, possibly frightened of either the owl or Wilhelmine’s “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” approach and Wilhelmine is left alone with Frl. von Sonsfeld whom she ends up kissing passionately because she is just so glad to be alive!

People are having fun at the celebration and Frl. von Sonsfeld attributes that to Katte being there and telling funny stories. He is, apparently, being spoiled rotten by the Queen’s affection. We later find out that SD is “telling FW about how great he is”-levels of into Katte. Because literally everyone in this play is super into Katte. Wilhelmine is the least into Katte and she’s supposedly in love with him.

The miniature portrait of totally just Wilhelmine that Fritz is definitely not a part of is mentioned and apparently SD took to the whole “I will not give this back, the Queen should calm down” thing way better here since not only is she not not talking to him anymore but, according to Frl. von Sonsfeld, Katte is “a favourite”.

Katte is also not done by simply saying “The Crown Prince allowed me to copy it, I made it, it’s mine”, no-o, this Katte apparently said that he “would rather die than give up Wilhelmine’s image”. Wilhelmine swoons a little at that and I believe I saw a glimpse of my own brain while rolling my eyes.

Frl. von Sonsfeld mentions that Katte seems a little distraught because he doesn’t listen to people and suddenly sucks at dancing, so Wilhelmine has her call him over.

Wilhelmine: “Oh no, he’s pale and distracted and telling funny stories! What does this mean? Oh, his fate truly seems to be written all over his face! I do not know how I should know his fate or why the author thought that including the thing about Katte “always looking somewhat grim as if he already knew his fate” was necessary since I wrote that line over a decade later when I, in fact, knew his fate, but whatever. Hey, Katte, why are you only funny when I am not around?”
Katte: “Funny is a word that is hard to define, but apparently the rest of the court had a blast listening to me talking about figuring out my horse’s dietary restrictions after it almost died. I don’t get it either, maybe I’m just that charming.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re looking a little worse for wear and there’s a twitch right where your eyebrows, that even this Katte-approving version of me can’t not comment on, are connected in the middle. What are you worried about?”
Katte: “Alright, I will speak. You know my relationship with the Crown Prince.”
Wilhelmine: “I will react to this statement with “a pained movement” that the author of this summary still does not know how to interpret in other ways than “don’t make me think about the fact that you’re screwing my brother”.”
Katte: “First up, my collar is up to code today. Maybe it is a metaphor, who knows. Now let me tell you about how Fritz and your dad not getting along is tearing my heart apart because I love them both so much and I am still FW’s biggest fan and I honestly don’t get why Fritz has a problem with him. So anyway, I can’t give either of them my whole heart, I am so torn, I think I might die. Onto the actual happenings: I think Fritz has been captured.”
Wilhelmine: “Okay then, leave Berlin asap.”
Katte: "No, I can't leave, all of the King's wrath would come down onto the Crown Prince and you! So I intend to sacrifice myself to save my Prince. However! If you fled with me, I would go! Because fuck what happens to Fritz, I guess. Having feelings that are consistent for more than two lines is hard for me."
Wilhelmine: “Do me a favour and run, I do not want your sacrifice.”
Katte: “Am I not good enough?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Listen, I just vaguely want you not to die and Fritz would say the same.”
Katte: “Who? Anyway, are you mad at me because I did not give that picture back to you?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Alright, I’ll let you have a love confession, now run.”
Katte: “Well, now I REALLY want to die for you! Can I have this last dance?”

While they dance, Fr. von Kamecke gets the letter notifying her that Fritz tried to flee, connects the dots to the ghost sightings and leaves to tell the Queen.

Katte tells Wilhelmine that he will send her a box full of evidence to destroy, tells her where to find his signet and leaves when the Queen starts screaming.

Change of scenery, Katte’s friend Holtzendorff appears and lets Katte know that they got time off to go to Malchow. Katte says that he doesn’t need it anymore because he will get arrested. Then he gets arrested.

End of Act 2. I’ll do the rest as soon as I can!

Ah, this is so great and your commentary is amazing! I laughed so many times I cannot tell you. I would tell you, but I've got to go study German, so I'll just say--keep it coming! :D :D

I will say that I took a look at this before you started summarizing, and being me I spent the most time on the execution and Fritz and Katte's last interaction, and I noticed a "Mein Bruder Jonathan." Uh huh. Yeah. Mein extremely heterosexual Bruder. :P

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 3 of 13

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (A)

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (B)

Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Re: Lehndorff readalong redux

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (B)

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Strange historical fiction among other things

Re: Strange historical fiction among other things

Another monarch who didn't like ballet

Re: Strange historical fiction among other things

Heinrich's Lookbook

Re: Lehndorff readalong redux - 1753 15th June to 22 June

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Re: Heinrich's Lookbook

Re: Strange historical fiction among other things

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

Re: Heinrich's Lookbook

Re: Another monarch who didn't like ballet

Re: Strange historical fiction among other things

Re: Heinrich's Lookbook

Re: Another monarch who didn't like ballet

Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)

Re: Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)