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: Empress Ch 7-9

[cahn]

once I finished her account of the 7 Years War, it dawned on me why she invented the whole "MT wanted to prevent Fritz' inevitable future invasion" reason to begin with - so she could give her a victory, when from an Austrian pov there really wasn't one.

Ohhhh, yeah, that makes sense. Although she was cool enough without that!

Though explaining why FS, who when marrying MT had definitely no riches to spare, ended up as one of the wealthiest men in Europe would had necessitated to explain he did more than hunting and wenching in something other than a single footnote.

This is one of the things I super love about FS! I'm definitely salty that Goldstone isn't giving him that credit.

It's Goldstone trying to keep MT from looking bad again. This is frustrating - MT is no less interesting because she makes mistakes! Fritz made plenty of mistakes in this same war, too!

UGH. Yes, MT is much more interesting as a fully-fleshed-out human being!

Which is why I would love to know Goldstone's source on this, if any. This is a really important twist in the story, and I wish she hadn't shot her credibility with us at this point due to all the earlier stuff.

Or -- maybe it's good she has already shot her credibility with us, if it turns out this is also completely inaccurate :P

Again, this is not how any of this worked.

GAH. Seriously, MT doesn't get less interesting if you position her as someone who likes to rule!

Re: Empress Ch 7-9

[selenak]

Just speculating, but: maybe it's a subconscious bias that wanting power, enjoying power, is inherently negative? I don't mean just for a woman. Most media these days has their sympathetic characters either as rebels, or if they do get into positions of power by sheer circumstance, not because they want it. And we don't see them actually use it, or wanting/fighting to keep it. (Unless we're talking Mafia stories.) The only exception I can think of was "The West Wing" which has flashbacks to the original Bartlet campaign but starts shortly after he's already President and covers the entire eight years of the Bartlet Administration. And that was fifteen years ago.

I suspect a great many people are wired to think that if you're not a Cincinnatus, giving up power the first moment you responsibly can, and only assuming it in the first place because other people urge you to, you're a bad person. Or at least not a sympathetic one.