There, there. Different strokes for different people. This is me with Katte. I'm anything but immune to starcrossed lovers and noble friends sacrificing themselves for their beloved. And I've now read so much more than two years ago, including the interrogation protocols, when I kept thinking "you poor boy". I've written my very own "Katte lives!" AU. (Which, okay, is Wilhelmine-centric, but he plays an important part.) And yet...
BTW, one of the hopes I had when reading the "Zeithain" novel, which after all had been advertised as the first Katte-centric take (which it is), was to get a hand on who he was outside of his death context. In the hopes that I'd come to feel more for him beyond being sorry (and eternally angry on his behalf at FW). But alas Michael Roes distracted me too much with his Daddy issues for that, i.e. his decision to triple the number of Evil Dads by adding Hans Heinrich and the father of his OC Philip Stanhope to it.
Since you bring up "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" - since that nearly overlaps with our era, time wise, I must say that I now want the AU where, disregarding the exact date when magic returns to England and pushing it a bit more back, the 7 Years War is fought with added magic. Seydlitz is a magician, clearly. Andrew Mitchell is, too, but doesn't have much practical talent, just enough for it to come in useful now and then, but he keeps it secret because he likes being an envoy far better than if he'd have to use his little magical talent for the government. Fredersdorf was a magician (this is how he could do so many jobs at the same time). Fritz very much wanted to be a magician, but alas, he's not (though he knows how to use them). Voltaire and Émilie: both magicians.
Re: Loyalty gesture tropes
BTW, one of the hopes I had when reading the "Zeithain" novel, which after all had been advertised as the first Katte-centric take (which it is), was to get a hand on who he was outside of his death context. In the hopes that I'd come to feel more for him beyond being sorry (and eternally angry on his behalf at FW). But alas Michael Roes distracted me too much with his Daddy issues for that, i.e. his decision to triple the number of Evil Dads by adding Hans Heinrich and the father of his OC Philip Stanhope to it.
Since you bring up "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" - since that nearly overlaps with our era, time wise, I must say that I now want the AU where, disregarding the exact date when magic returns to England and pushing it a bit more back, the 7 Years War is fought with added magic. Seydlitz is a magician, clearly. Andrew Mitchell is, too, but doesn't have much practical talent, just enough for it to come in useful now and then, but he keeps it secret because he likes being an envoy far better than if he'd have to use his little magical talent for the government. Fredersdorf was a magician (this is how he could do so many jobs at the same time). Fritz very much wanted to be a magician, but alas, he's not (though he knows how to use them). Voltaire and Émilie: both magicians.