And if not him, and you want to present FW himself as strict but fair because you're a 19th century German playwright and evil Hohenzollern kings are not on, what's wrong with G & S, single or together, as the main villain(s)? Where does the evil valet come from?
If you've been reading W's memoirs lately, she does rather hate on Eversmann, so I can kind of squint and see where you'd get that.
What's interesting to me is that Eversmann, being a valet, really is a stooge rather than a main villain in the memoirs, and specifically his main role is carrying messages between FW and Wilhelmine. And she hates on him SO MUCH, that given that the messages are things like "Your dad is beating up your brother again, fyi he's covered in blood" and "All this family strife is your fault for not marrying the latest guy your dad picked--just do what he wants and everyone can be happy!" that I have to wonder how much of the sheer hate-on is transferred anger at her father that W can't give full expression to. What with W's classism, the fact that hating your parents is not on, and hating and loving your parents at the same time is complicated in any century, never mind the 18th, Eversmann looks to me like a really, really safe target for sheer unadulterated hatred. Even G & S come across in W's memoirs as more three-dimensional characters than Eversmann does.
think it is meta-hilarious that LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD EXCEPT FW thinks the Potsdam Giants are hilarious!
I know. Even the occasional fervent FW defender whose text I've read thinks so.
Not Showalter! Dennis Showalter, modern military historian, thinks they were TOTALLY sensible and not at all a fetish. From his 1996 military history of Fritz:
Even the King’s most often-cited military indulgence, his regiment of ‘giant grenadiers’, was a useful test bed for new methods of drill and new items of equipment as well as a military hobby.
...
The King preferred tall, well-built soldiers. Big men could more readily handle and more quickly reload the long-barrelled infantry musket. Linking size and physical fitness was also reasonable in an economic environment where malnutrition was common and a military environment where captains and colonels concerned with keeping their muster rolls reasonably honest might well overlook such minor problems as double hernias.
One important thing to note in this context is that nearly every page of Showalter's book has some kind of "Actually, so-and-so had a really good strategic reason for such-and-such a decision, despite a centuries-long history of criticizing their judgment and/or attributing the decision to psychological factors" interpretation of something or other. So be aware that he has this particular bias.
Re: Reply to the RomCom
If you've been reading W's memoirs lately, she does rather hate on Eversmann, so I can kind of squint and see where you'd get that.
What's interesting to me is that Eversmann, being a valet, really is a stooge rather than a main villain in the memoirs, and specifically his main role is carrying messages between FW and Wilhelmine. And she hates on him SO MUCH, that given that the messages are things like "Your dad is beating up your brother again, fyi he's covered in blood" and "All this family strife is your fault for not marrying the latest guy your dad picked--just do what he wants and everyone can be happy!" that I have to wonder how much of the sheer hate-on is transferred anger at her father that W can't give full expression to. What with W's classism, the fact that hating your parents is not on, and hating and loving your parents at the same time is complicated in any century, never mind the 18th, Eversmann looks to me like a really, really safe target for sheer unadulterated hatred. Even G & S come across in W's memoirs as more three-dimensional characters than Eversmann does.
think it is meta-hilarious that LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD EXCEPT FW thinks the Potsdam Giants are hilarious!
I know. Even the occasional fervent FW defender whose text I've read thinks so.
Not Showalter! Dennis Showalter, modern military historian, thinks they were TOTALLY sensible and not at all a fetish. From his 1996 military history of Fritz:
Even the King’s most often-cited military indulgence, his regiment of ‘giant grenadiers’, was a useful test bed for new methods of drill and new items of equipment as well as a military hobby.
...
The King preferred tall, well-built soldiers. Big men could more readily handle and more quickly reload the long-barrelled infantry musket. Linking size and physical fitness was also reasonable in an economic environment where malnutrition was common and a military environment where captains and colonels concerned with keeping their muster rolls reasonably honest might well overlook such minor problems as double hernias.
One important thing to note in this context is that nearly every page of Showalter's book has some kind of "Actually, so-and-so had a really good strategic reason for such-and-such a decision, despite a centuries-long history of criticizing their judgment and/or attributing the decision to psychological factors" interpretation of something or other. So be aware that he has this particular bias.