These are fair points! I mean, Fritz is intensely social with select people, and outside of that most of his interactions are work-related, and he's comfortable with significant alone time though he prefers his small select groups, and I headcanon Fredersdorf as not being tremendously different in those respects, but you've both convinced me that other interpretations are possible!
Certainly Fredersdorf doesn't go full-on asshole with people the same way as Fritz does, and he quite likely understands what makes people tick better than our Fritz (which is a headcanon I agree with). But what I don't see is Fritz going, "God, I hate dealing with people; you deal with people." What I see is Fritz going, "I've only got 24 hours in the day, and unfortunately I need to sleep 4 of them, so I'll deal with these people and you deal with those people."
Which means, yes, I agree completely with:
this is actually because of Fritz -- Fritz is also very able to be charming and interact with people when he wants to, and is super competent, so it's sort of a matter of degree rather than kind -- if he wanted to he could probably have done anything Fredersdorf did (although he was king, so why should he?)
So even if Fredersdorf was a total social butterfly on his own time, I don't see it driving how he works with Fritz. And apparently that kind of complementarity is a huge part of my narrative kink for relationships (not necessarily romantic or sexual) between "person in charge" and "the person that person relies on most for the parts they're not good at or don't like doing."
This is apparently a hugely consistent button-pusher for me, from Norrell and Childermass to Diocletian and Maximian (whom I requested for Yuletide for exactly this reason), from Denethor and Boromir to Burns and Smithers (lol, my crackship), and it occurs to me that that's exactly how I wrote Mags and Finnick, who are essentially both OCs in my AU.
And yes, I extremely meant Denethor and Boromir! Behold canon:
Denethor II was wise also, and far-sighted, and learned in lore...Denethor ...would sit long alone in his tower deep in thought, foreseeing that the assault of Mordor would come in his time. It was afterwards believed that needing knowledge, but being proud, and trusting in his own strength of will, he dared to look in the palantír of the White Tower. None of the Stewards had dared to do this, nor even the kings Eärnil and Eärnur...Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but in little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles.
So canonically Denethor sits alone in his tower, gathering information and reading minds and politicking and staring into the palantir and doing high-level strategy, and presumably doing paperwork or the equivalent thereof, and Boromir goes out in the field and wages war in person, and goes on a quest to Imladris, and so on. And my headcanon has Boromir more approachable and better able to bond with his men over a beer, in a way that actually gets things done that Denethor needs done but can't do himself. While the last thing Boromir wants is to sit alone in a tower thinking. :P
The part where neither of them wants to do the part the other is doing and their skill sets align in a perfectly complementary way, and there's deep trust and respect between them, is my absolute favorite.
This is kind of like us and our magical alchemy, now that I think of it. :D Our skill sets and interests align, and we build on each other's contributions, such that the whole of what we achieve is greater than the sum of its parts.
And this is why my strongest emotional responses to physical gestures of loyalty are from Maximian to Diocletian and Finnick to Mags (as I showed you), and not from Fredersdorf to Fritz. Combine complementary skills resulting in magical alchemy with deep 100% trust and commitment, and preferably add in a hurt/comfort element, and that's where a physical gesture of loyalty will sock me right in the feels.
I would say Faramir and Boromir did!
This is because Faramir and Denethor overlap a lot in their skills! Different personalities, but similar skill sets. I ship Faramir and Boromir hard as (non-incestuous) brothers, but since they never end up in that dynamic where Boromir is Faramir's trusted second-in-command, they push very different buttons for me than Denethor and Boromir. (Though the complementarity definitely helps.)
It occurs to me that even though my feelings for Boromir and Faramir are much stronger than my feelings for Denethor and Boromir (or, say, Diocletian and Maximian), and even though they complement each other well, and even though their mutual trust and commitment and loyalty is absolute, physical gestures of loyalty from one to the other don't work for me, because they don't have that incredibly specific dynamic of "first in command"/"second in command", where the first in command is more intellectual or stay-at-home, and/or the second in command has more physical or military prowess, or at least goes out and interacts with the world more, being the arms and legs and eyes and ears of the person they're reporting to.
Okay, I'm realizing just how *extremely* specific this narrative kink is. :P It does explain why these exact conditions haven't been met in this fandom yet! And Amalie to Heinrich has basically no overlap in this Venn diagram, so you can see why you had to ask me to insert that gesture of loyalty.
Ha. I'm actually surprised these conditions get met as often as they do, honestly. I can tell you they feature heavily in my unwritten OC stories in my head. :)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: Fritz and Fredersdorf
Date: 2021-02-08 11:22 pm (UTC)Certainly Fredersdorf doesn't go full-on asshole with people the same way as Fritz does, and he quite likely understands what makes people tick better than our Fritz (which is a headcanon I agree with). But what I don't see is Fritz going, "God, I hate dealing with people; you deal with people." What I see is Fritz going, "I've only got 24 hours in the day, and unfortunately I need to sleep 4 of them, so I'll deal with these people and you deal with those people."
Which means, yes, I agree completely with:
this is actually because of Fritz -- Fritz is also very able to be charming and interact with people when he wants to, and is super competent, so it's sort of a matter of degree rather than kind -- if he wanted to he could probably have done anything Fredersdorf did (although he was king, so why should he?)
So even if Fredersdorf was a total social butterfly on his own time, I don't see it driving how he works with Fritz. And apparently that kind of complementarity is a huge part of my narrative kink for relationships (not necessarily romantic or sexual) between "person in charge" and "the person that person relies on most for the parts they're not good at or don't like doing."
This is apparently a hugely consistent button-pusher for me, from Norrell and Childermass to Diocletian and Maximian (whom I requested for Yuletide for exactly this reason), from Denethor and Boromir to Burns and Smithers (lol, my crackship), and it occurs to me that that's exactly how I wrote Mags and Finnick, who are essentially both OCs in my AU.
And yes, I extremely meant Denethor and Boromir! Behold canon:
Denethor II was wise also, and far-sighted, and learned in lore...Denethor ...would sit long alone in his tower deep in thought, foreseeing that the assault of Mordor would come in his time. It was afterwards believed that needing knowledge, but being proud, and trusting in his own strength of will, he dared to look in the palantír of the White Tower. None of the Stewards had dared to do this, nor even the kings Eärnil and Eärnur...Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but in little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles.
So canonically Denethor sits alone in his tower, gathering information and reading minds and politicking and staring into the palantir and doing high-level strategy, and presumably doing paperwork or the equivalent thereof, and Boromir goes out in the field and wages war in person, and goes on a quest to Imladris, and so on. And my headcanon has Boromir more approachable and better able to bond with his men over a beer, in a way that actually gets things done that Denethor needs done but can't do himself. While the last thing Boromir wants is to sit alone in a tower thinking. :P
The part where neither of them wants to do the part the other is doing and their skill sets align in a perfectly complementary way, and there's deep trust and respect between them, is my absolute favorite.
This is kind of like us and our magical alchemy, now that I think of it. :D Our skill sets and interests align, and we build on each other's contributions, such that the whole of what we achieve is greater than the sum of its parts.
And this is why my strongest emotional responses to physical gestures of loyalty are from Maximian to Diocletian and Finnick to Mags (as I showed you), and not from Fredersdorf to Fritz. Combine complementary skills resulting in magical alchemy with deep 100% trust and commitment, and preferably add in a hurt/comfort element, and that's where a physical gesture of loyalty will sock me right in the feels.
I would say Faramir and Boromir did!
This is because Faramir and Denethor overlap a lot in their skills! Different personalities, but similar skill sets. I ship Faramir and Boromir hard as (non-incestuous) brothers, but since they never end up in that dynamic where Boromir is Faramir's trusted second-in-command, they push very different buttons for me than Denethor and Boromir. (Though the complementarity definitely helps.)
It occurs to me that even though my feelings for Boromir and Faramir are much stronger than my feelings for Denethor and Boromir (or, say, Diocletian and Maximian), and even though they complement each other well, and even though their mutual trust and commitment and loyalty is absolute, physical gestures of loyalty from one to the other don't work for me, because they don't have that incredibly specific dynamic of "first in command"/"second in command", where the first in command is more intellectual or stay-at-home, and/or the second in command has more physical or military prowess, or at least goes out and interacts with the world more, being the arms and legs and eyes and ears of the person they're reporting to.
Okay, I'm realizing just how *extremely* specific this narrative kink is. :P It does explain why these exact conditions haven't been met in this fandom yet! And Amalie to Heinrich has basically no overlap in this Venn diagram, so you can see why you had to ask me to insert that gesture of loyalty.
Ha. I'm actually surprised these conditions get met as often as they do, honestly. I can tell you they feature heavily in my unwritten OC stories in my head. :)