Yes, and that makes it really so... I mean, the other awful things FW does and says, I have no trouble to understand the psychological motivation for. With Fritz, he never really gets over the part where as a young father he imagined they'd have the perfect loving father/son relationship and Fritz would be just like him and happy that FW saves from boring Latin and boring ancient history and boring French literature, and then Fritz likes all that and is afraid of FW and lies and WHY IS THE WRETCHED BOY SO UNGRATEFUL? Executing Katte isn't about Katte, it's about punishing Fritz. Exploding at SD is because she, too, is ungrateful (he's faithful to her! Has no mistresses! No bastards! Keeps her with him instead of living apart most of the time! What more does she want?), and the older the children get, the more he blames her for turning them against him. And his mutual hate-on with G2 is just one of those childhood things that can happen within a family, aided and abetted by the fact they're way too much alike. But this systematic tormenting of Gundling even beyond death? If he ever had been in Gundling's power and abused, I'd get where it comes from, but as it is, I'm left with Klepper's and Stade's novelistic theory that in his heart, he knew Gundling had been right in his comments, and therefore Gundling had to be humiliated and shown beyond the shadow of a doubt as being someone whom no one, including FW himself, could possibly believe to be right about anything.
I mean, the other awful things FW does and says, I have no trouble to understand the psychological motivation for.
Yes, this! Like, for all those things I can have a tiny amount of -- idk if I should even call it sympathy, but at least where I see where he's coming from, even if I think he's horrible. But Gundling is just... beyond the pale.
Re: Stratemann on Gundling's funeral.
Date: 2021-03-30 07:14 am (UTC)Re: Stratemann on Gundling's funeral.
Date: 2021-04-01 05:31 am (UTC)Yes, this! Like, for all those things I can have a tiny amount of -- idk if I should even call it sympathy, but at least where I see where he's coming from, even if I think he's horrible. But Gundling is just... beyond the pale.