18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

[cahn]

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Comments

Katte execution

[mildred_of_midgard]

ROFL! I don't know that I would have been able to resist (and not because it's Katte, but because I'm that kind of person :P).

Where are those filmed firing squads!

I mean, not that I watch a lot of German movies, but I've seen a few depictions of Katte's execution, and none of them were firing squads!

sure, there was that Yuletide fanfic where he was shot (and FW was present)

The only Yuletide fics I can think of, this one, where FW is present, and this one, which you corrected, were both axes. Which I find it difficult to blame the authors for, since Blanning has an axe too!

...Mildred has influenced me far too much. I didn't use to care that much about the exact manner of Katte's execution.

Lies, all lies! You were correcting people on the manner of Katte's execution before I even knew what the manner of Katte's execution was! :PPPP Your comment I linked to in the previous paragraph, correcting "axe" to "sword", is from January 2019, and salon didn't start until August 2019. Blame Fontane.

More seriously, it's definitely thanks to me that you know so much more about the details now, just as it's thanks to you and your German-reading that I know so much about the details. But my point about the chronology stands. :P

Funnily enough, last week I was reading a Fritz/Katte fanfic, and Katte's body was left exposed for Fritz to see all day and night (as per Wilhelmine), and I was, in my head of course, thinking, "But it was covered with a black cloth! And removed at 2 pm the same day! We have far more reliable sources than Wilhelmine!"

In that case, though, making Fritz look at the dead body makes fictional sense, for extra angst, whereas your older German actor has no excuse!

Re: Katte execution

[selenak]

Yuletide: the fic I corrected in my comment had in its original version death by firing squad, and the author graciously changed it then. My current theory re: firing squads is that there's no movie or tv depiction of Katte getting executed this way, but between Goya's paintings and a lot of historical and fictional characters getting shot in subsequent centuries, people not so familiar with the era when they hear of an officer getting executed for desertion automatically think "gun".

Incidentally, my mental protest two nights ago also continued "besides, you're making it sound as if Fritz and Katte ran away together, and they really really REALLY did not, but then, you're in the company of many a published author, and also, the actual way Katte was arrested was way too complicated to summarize for a throwaway comment about the ghastliness of Prussian education.

Re: Katte execution

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yuletide: the fic I corrected in my comment had in its original version death by firing squad, and the author graciously changed it then

Your comment, which the author quoted and graciously mentioned making the change, reads, "Katte was executed by sword, not axe," but I'll take your word for it, since you were there and I wasn't! I suppose it could have been a typo where you were thinking of the other Yuletide fic, which you didn't correct and which still has the axe (and FW present).

but between Goya's paintings and a lot of historical and fictional characters getting shot in subsequent centuries, people not so familiar with the era when they hear of an officer getting executed for desertion automatically think "gun".

Interesting! Make sense. When did death by firing squad start, anyway? When I think of firing squads, the Duc d'Enghien (1804) comes to mind, but I just realized I don't know when the practice became common.

"besides, you're making it sound as if Fritz and Katte ran away together, and they really really REALLY did not, but then, you're in the company of many a published author

Agreed. I think that's even one of the things we ragged on Goldstone for. I still think we could offer beta-reading services on Prussian history, if people only knew they should ask us. :D