Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 23

[cahn]

aaaaaand it's time for a new discussion post! :D (you guys are so fast!)

Comments

Re: Austrian marriage plans

[cahn]

That was the one place where their stories diverged, and also the one where Fritz couldn't come up with a clever answer.

Ahhhh okay! And ha, yeah, I can see you guys talked about it but I can also see that I just didn't know enough to be able to absorb everything properly :)

The entire fic as well as the dialogue is carefully constructed to make it open to both interpretations.

...But yeah, it is heavily skewed to direct you toward my personal preference, which is why you remember it that way. :P

Ha! Yes, all right, I see that now. But yes, given that those bits are wholly in Fritz's POV... :P

So yeah, sorry for imprinting you before salon had read All The Things. :P

:)

I find masquerading (in any form, for any reason) far more interesting than sincere piety.

Not gonna lie, I read this sentence and my brain was like VOLTAIRE! :D But anyway, I find both interesting but in different ways, and they appeal to different parts of my psyche. Masquerading is certainly more intellectually interesting and stimulating to me, deist "defender of the Protestant faith" having texts read in the church about not suffering a woman to lead makes me laugh, lol, and sincere piety can easily be boring (I must reluctantly concede that I actually don't want fic about EC), but sometimes piety can be interesting.

Though in MT's case I think a large part of why I glommed onto her was not particularly her piety but because it was such a relief to find someone in this fandom who was from a vaguely-functional family (although I suppose she had her own problems, and she managed to mess up her kids a fair amount, at least they weren't... Hohenzollern problems).

So it wasn't all FW's example? At any rate, it's bittersweet to me that he was able to keep working up till the very end.

Yeah, I know we talked about this before a bit... But it just breaks my heart that FW was like "what a lazy kid I have" and, like, NO!

Re: Austrian marriage plans

[mildred_of_midgard]

Not gonna lie, I read this sentence and my brain was like VOLTAIRE!

Not gonna lie, I had Voltaire on the brain when I wrote this! He went to Mass any number of times.

sometimes piety can be interesting.

I agree that it can be, but it's *generally* less interesting to me than cunning plans and ulterior motives, and certainly in this case. Which is why I'm disappointed and leaning toward ignoring the Hans Heinrich letters wherever possible. :P Or at least working around them.

Though in MT's case I think a large part of why I glommed onto her was not particularly her piety but because it was such a relief to find someone in this fandom who was from a vaguely-functional family (although I suppose she had her own problems, and she managed to mess up her kids a fair amount, at least they weren't... Hohenzollern problems).

What MT feels I do have are largely focused on her being a TERRIER. She has many other good traits, such as correcting her husband' spelling and snarking at Fritz's dirty laundry, total respect there. :P

Yeah, I know we talked about this before a bit... But it just breaks my heart that FW was like "what a lazy kid I have" and, like, NO!

I KNOW, RIGHT? He didn't know his kids, like, at all. Not even AW, clearly. :/

Re: Austrian marriage plans

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ha! Yes, all right, I see that now. But yes, given that those bits are wholly in Fritz's POV... :P

Yeah, I was definitely wrong about Fritz's perspective on Katte's sincerity. I was drawing on his "it's easy to compel someone to profess religious beliefs, but you gain nothing from the empty words" quote, instead of the interrogation protocols about which I did not know yet.

But I totally left the fic ambiguous as to whether it's a ghost visitation or a fever/opium dream (even the tags!), and as you saw, I call out the ambiguity in that exchange by having Fritz say, "I knew it!" and Katte go, "I'm your dream. I am as you remember me." :P

And then, even waffling like that, I *still* managed to be wrong! GDI. :P