Hahaha, no, no worries. I've always had it as my headcanon that Katte's relationship with his own father, in the society in which he was indoctrinated, was such that he felt that you *should* obey your father even if he was strict; that some of Katte's reluctance to join the cause of desertion was because he partially blamed Fritz for provoking FW; and that it took him a while for the "this is not normal strict Prussian Hausvater behavior like my father's" to outweigh "but honor thy father!" in the scales for him.

I mean, I have thought about this far less than you :P but as someone who grew up at least partially in a culture that stresses filial piety as well as a religion that also greatly stresses family (though less specifically filial duty), I agree that all of this is quite plausible. As well as plausible that, as you proposed earlier, he did think that the escape attempt was all a terrible idea (mostly because of all the upbringing stuff, but maybe also because, well, getting caught wasn't going to be good, though worse than he thought) but thought the punishment was disproportionate.

Yes, I'm always struck by the fact that Katte's final priorities were wanting to visit Fritz the night before, wanting to reassure him of his blamelessness, and wanting to blow kisses at him. It's evidence relevant not just to the question of how much he repents, but also for the nature of his relationship to Fritz... if you were only sucking up to a royal for the benefits, I'd think you'd be a little more resentful when that sucking up led you to get your head cut off.

Ooh, that's a good point. Yeah, I'd think so too. That makes a lot of sense.