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

[cahn]

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.

Comments

Re: Sodomy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Aahhh, okay, that makes sense. I did see "viehische Vermischung" and wished the pdf were formatted so as to allow me to run that phrase through Google Translate on my phone like I do with the books I scan, but yes, of course it means bestiality.

I blame Horowski! He says it means male/male sex! Or at least tell me if you can interpret this passage as having a bestiality meaning, because it seems like a real stretch to me.

Für die Zeitgenossen war schon männliche Homosexualität keineswegs etwas klar Definiertes oder gar wie heute eine Identität, obwohl auf die vage mit ‹Sodomie› bezeichneten Aktivitäten nach wie vor die Todesstrafe durch Verbrennen stand. Selbst wenn Monsieur sonst in seinem ganzen Leben keine einzige gute Tat getan hätte, muss man ihm dafür Respekt zollen , dass er allein schon durch seine Existenz als unübersehbar homosexueller Königsbruder mindestens im Großraum Paris eine Durchsetzung dieses Gesetzes unmöglich machte – jede Verfolgung von Homosexuellen hätte dort sofort auch seine umfangreiche Entourage mitbetroffen und war daher in dieser hierarchischen Gesellschaft einfach unmöglich. In Preußen schaffte später Friedrich II. die Todesstrafe für «Sodomie» ab, was er damit begründete, dass Jugendliche ja gerne bei öffentlichen Hinrichtungen zuschauten ; da sie natürlich auch nach dem jeweiligen Grund fragten, brächte man sie so auf unanständige Ideen. Für lesbische Beziehungen gab es nicht einmal ein Wort.

For contemporaries, male homosexuality was by no means something clearly defined or, as it is today, an identity, although the activities vaguely labeled 'sodomy' were still subject to the death penalty by burning. Even if Monsieur would not have done a single good deed in his entire life, he must be respected for the fact that his very existence as an unmistakably homosexual brother of the king made it impossible to enforce this law, at least in the greater Paris area - any persecution of homosexuals there would immediately have affected his extensive entourage and was therefore simply impossible in this hierarchical society. Later in Prussia, Friedrich II. abolished the death penalty for "sodomy", which he justified with the fact that young people liked to watch public executions; since they naturally also asked for the respective reason, that would give them indecent ideas. For lesbian relationships, there was not even a word.

But yeah, from the cabinet order, you're right, it does look like we're talking bestiality here, and that does explain why he's criticized for not abolishing the death penalty for homosexual acts. And no, I don't think I've seen anyone say it was actually enforced; I brought the lack of enforcement up back in the earliest days of the salon when I mentioned that he'd left the death penalty on the books.

(I might add I was immediately skeptical that it's impossible to persecute the lower classes of Paris for something that the upper classes are doing, but then I promptly got distracted by the next sentence about Fritz.)

Oh, cahn, "Monsieur" is the gay Philippe, Duc d'Orleans. This passage is introduced by discussing the way his first wife (not Liselotte) had a well-documented lesbian relationship.

I seem remember a letter in his old age where he’s proud to having had to sign only a handful of death penalties in his entire reign

Blanning cites one to Heinrich in 1781 in which Fritz claims that there are no more than 12 death sentences annually in an average year, which matches the statistics Blanning gives. For the years 1775-1778, Blanning gives the following number of death sentences for the following crimes (you can see infanticide is up there):

Murder 12
Concocting poison 4
Highway robbery 2
Infanticide 18
Arson 8
Soliciting desertion 2
Total 46

In his entire reign, Fritz says he's only signed one death penalty in Silesia, because only one man deserved it.