Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Re: Sex and Murder, Stuart Edition: New Media

[cahn]

is said to have arranged his marriage with a rich heiress by tricking said heiress into spending the night under the same roof as George (so she had to marry him to salvage her reputation)

omg!

and being the source for the home remedies Buckingham provided James with in the week before his death.

okay, I lol'ed at this :)

But precisely because this era and these people are not osmosed by pop culture so far (as opposed to the thousands of Tudor fictionalisations), I feel a bit frustrated that it will be introduced to the public at large this way.

Yeah, that's super fair. And, I mean, yes to Buckingham, but, like, you realize that I was sufficiently confused that I assumed Three Musketeers Buckingham was not James' Buckingham until you explicitly said so!

Because I can't believe I'm saying this, since I used to strongly dislike James in my younger days (because of his witch hunting encouragement), but presenting him as the passive plaything of his favourites led by his prick is unfair.

*nods*
I also do wonder if part of this is because the one thing that the average American will know about James I is that he sponsored the King James Version of the Bible.

But that doesn't mean he didn't feel any affection for James at all, and that all the loving letters still existing were fakes. James wasn't an idiot.

*nods* Like you say, there's a distinct difference between "I might not have worked nearly as hard to be close to that person if they hadn't been rich" (or whatever) and "I don't actually feel any affection for that person."

Heh, I will probably not see it, but please report back when you do!

(And hope they include Essex shouting "I'm not impotent!" at everyone.)

YES.