cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

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Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Then someone on the French part of the production team must have said "but we can't have a German-Austrian having to explain to A FRENCH KING OF THE HOUSE BOURBON how sex works, that's just not on, no one would believe this!"

Hahaha, this whole thing is great but especially this!

I have to say, though, the Joseph & Marie Antoinette relationship depicted in this episode is delightful and a breath of fresh air because the Bourbons have been a dysfunctional cesspit through the season

Well, that checks out, right? I recall feeling sorry for young future Louis XVI...

....and I'M still tickled they called the Joseph visit episode "Deus ex Machina".

Hee!

From:

selenak

Hahaha, this whole thing is great but especially this!

The script even includes some snark on Joseph's qualifications as marriage counsellor, i.e., when the Duc de Provence (who of course doesn't want Louis to procreate, since he wants to become King himself) is worried by Joseph's arrival and wonders whether it might save the marriage, another character says, eh, what does HE know about working marriages, his first wife fell in love with his sister and the second was so neglected by him that she prayed for smallpox which she got. Which, fair. But a) he did know how sex resulting in procreation worked (as evidenced by having produced a daughter himself), and b) not being able to manage one's own relationships never stopped anyonen from handing out advice to other people, which occasionally could be useful.

Well, that checks out, right? I recall feeling sorry for young future Louis XVI...

Oh, same here, and yes, so far, so accurate. In fact, by reducing Louis' siblings to one (the Duc de Provence - I guess no Madame Elisabeth to stay with Marie Antoinette come the Revolution, then? And more importantly, whom are the 1830 Revolutionaries going to overthrow if Louis' second brother, future Charlex X, doesn't exist?), the amount of taunts is even limited. (The other Bourbons taunting are Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV, and the future Philippe Egalité, at the point the show starts correctly referred to as Chartres, since his (unseen on the show) Dad is still alive so he's not the Duc d'Orleans yet.)

Of course, as MA's sisters are mentioned but not shown, and her non-Joseph brothers aren't even mentioned, Habsburgs are reduced in numbers on this show as well. Oh, and remember when that short story/novella squandering a good premise with ghost!MT and ghost!Fritz and ghost!Henri de Catt had ghost!MT immediately tell de Catt "call me Resi"? The show evidently thought there was no other way to get across Joseph was going for an informal FOR HIS TIME style as Emperor than having let him tell the French Ambassador (Rohan, correctly depicted as someone MT takes a dislike on from the start) when meeting him "call me Joseph", and I groaned. I dare say he wouldn't even have told Fritz "call me Joseph" when having his fanboy moment of meeting him for the first time. That's not what "informal" in the 18th century meant for monarchs, show!

(The other way Joseph gets to be informal is that while MA refers to MT as "Mama", Joseph calls her "Ma". As in "When am I going to be the one making the decisions here, Ma? MT: "When I'm dead." Subtlety is not this show's strongest suit.)

Something for the dog lover in you: now famously MA had to leave her beloved pet dog behind when entering French territory at age 14 and was much distressed. In rl, when Joseph visited seven years later, she asked after the dog (and was told he was taken care of), so still hadn't forgotten him. In this show, after spending two episodes almost completely silent because he's too shy and terrified to talk to his new wife, in episode 3 future Louis XVI shows her and the audience while he was to scared and inhibited to talk, he did listen because he has her dog brought from Austria and reunited with her. (AW, even ahistorically so.) Fast forward to the Joseph episode, where we first see Joseph from behind, and the signal that this isn't a sinister stranger is that the dog immediately recognizes him and greets him with enthusiasm.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

That's not what "informal" in the 18th century meant for monarchs, show!

Ferdinand of Sicily: I say, if you want to be informal with a monarch, you slap them on the butt!

he did listen because he has her dog brought from Austria and reunited with her...Fast forward to the Joseph episode, where we first see Joseph from behind, and the signal that this isn't a sinister stranger is that the dog immediately recognizes him and greets him with enthusiasm.

Awww! This is a great episode and I approve of the ahistoricity!

From:

cahn

another character says, eh, what does HE know about working marriages, his first wife fell in love with his sister and the second was so neglected by him that she prayed for smallpox which she got. Which, fair.

Heh, I appreciate that in the script!

Though I suppose that line of logic makes more sense for the MarriageCounselor!Joseph that's on this show than, er, RL Sex!Counselor!Joseph anyway...

he did listen because he has her dog brought from Austria and reunited with her. (AW, even ahistorically so.) Fast forward to the Joseph episode, where we first see Joseph from behind, and the signal that this isn't a sinister stranger is that the dog immediately recognizes him and greets him with enthusiasm.

Aw, I like this too, historical or not!

Edited Date: 2023-06-29 05:05 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Though I suppose that line of logic makes more sense for the MarriageCounselor!Joseph that's on this show than, er, RL Sex!Counselor!Joseph anyway...

Indeed; these two tasksets might overlap but are still distinctly different. (Not to mention that the tv show changed the sex advice to "let a professional explain this to you via demonstration so you'll learn". BTW, the Coppola movie gets around the trickiness by letting Joseph and Louis stroll to admire the French elephant and Joseph joking he has one in Vienna as well, and maybe they could match, and then transition to "speaking of...." and the camera pulls back further and further so we see the two as the courtiers see them from a distance, unable to hear anything. Cut to Louis finally managing penetration in bed with MA.)