Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30

[cahn]

In which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)

Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:

The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.

Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.

The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P

Comments

Re: Reading group: In the Shadow of the Empress - second half of ch 3

[selenak]

this double-crossing bastard

She totally misses out his Sorceress Alcina quality, though. :) Voltaire would be disappointed.

More seriously, she does grant him becoming a great general in his second (and onwards) battle, and sharing MT's hardcore work dedication and discipline. And she's not wrong in drawing a connection between his childhood and youth abuse and his need for constant aggrandizement (also far from the only one to do so). But going from there to "he learned to despise honor, loyalty etc." belongs in a novel, not in a book of non-fiction.

Though Lavisse might have said something similar - Mildred, did he? Still haven't read him.

Re: Reading group: In the Shadow of the Empress - second half of ch 3

[mildred_of_midgard]

And she's not wrong in drawing a connection between his childhood and youth abuse and his need for constant aggrandizement (also far from the only one to do so).

Right? That part is true. But it's not only that there were other factors at work (the quest for glory was kind of in the cultural air, FW or now FW). He was also far from the only one to flamboyantly lie to your face while preparing to invade your country (let me tell you about Peter the Great, it was amazing, I will have to share this story at some point). It doesn't make it right, it's just that I think Fritz's geopolitics go back less to his childhood than the way he treated the people around him.

But going from there to "he learned to despise honor, loyalty etc." belongs in a novel, not in a book of non-fiction.

Agreed.

Though Lavisse might have said something similar - Mildred, did he? Still haven't read him.

Ehhh, sort of? Not like this, though. (Or at least not that I remember.) It's more like, "Fritz was more machine than man, ready to do great things on the European stage," (great from the perspective of a Frenchman writing after the Franco-Prussian War, so not in a "Prussian destiny" way, in more of a "Watch me side-eye him" way), not "Fritz was THE WORST because he was psychologically abused."

What I'm reminded of is Bisset's snark that honor and Fritz were at best nodding aquaintances, if not altogether strangers. :P