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: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[cahn]

Gosh. I mean, he's right, but at the same time yet another incident where Fritz isn't getting helped...

Re: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

I knooow. I mean, we knew about this one already from Selena's summary of Hartmann, but my heart broke all over again for Fritz reading this. </3

Re: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

And also, here's the thing: maybe it wouldn't have ended so badly if he'd had more HELP!!

Re: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[selenak]

That, though it's hard to say what else he could have done. Truly helping Fritz would have entailed either getting him successfully out of Prussia or murdering FW. In the former case, Lövenörn would have risked a Prussian/Danish war a century ahead of schedule, and in the later case if uncovered as well. In both cases, he'd have failed his own government and behaved grossly unprofessional as the Danish envoy.

...which is why Mildred really should write the Murder on the Wusterhausen Express AU!

Re: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[cahn]

...which is why Mildred really should write the Murder on the Wusterhausen Express AU!

I am fully behind this! :D

Re: Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

I agree! However, Mildred also has these essays she's supposed to be researching and writing, and cannot afford to get more distracted than she already is. The Løvenørn letters are being read solely with the intention of getting back into decipherment. Ditto the Anna Amalia bio in German and the French medieval history books. *looks diligent*