Catherine The Great - Blog Posts
Quick essay that no one asked for on the ship of Seong Gi-hun and Hwang In-ho. I see this pairing being commonly compared to the likes of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, and while I definitely see the similarities, to me, the (oddly enough, heterosexual) couple they remind me the most of is Catherine the Great and Peter III of Russia.
These characters are from the television show The Great, and long story short, Catherine the Great begins as a naive and optimistic young woman who marries Peter III, and her optimism shatters upon realizing how cruel and spiteful her husband is, and she decides to overthrow him. However, despite everything they do to each other over the course of the series, including attempting to kill and overthrow each other and murdering one another's loved ones, they somehow fall in love.
Their love is so powerful and all-consuming that even those around them, closest to them, cannot fathom it after all that they have done to one another and to me that is how Seong Gi-hun and Hwang In-ho are. Often people argue that Gi-hun would never in actuality love In-ho after what he did to countless players and Jung-bae, but that is the point: like Peter and Catherine, their twisted love transcends the violence and betrayal, showing a deeper connection that defies logic and reason.
Specifically, there is one scene played out between Peter and Catherine that I could easily see happening between Gi-hun and In-ho. In a fit of rage, Catherine finally stabs Peter (who is actually a body double of him), and she thinks she has killed him, and upon realizing what she has done, she breaks down in sobs and falls to her knees. Then the real Peter appears, and Catherine, realizing he is alive and how she felt when she thought she had killed him, realizes her feelings, and he holds her while she cries. I can totally see Gi-hun somehow managing to shoot The Frontman (who is actually a double as well, let us say) only to similarly break down in tears and feel utter devastation over what he thought he had done. Then In-ho appears, revealing that the individual in the Frontman outfit was a double, and Gi-hun is overcome with a multitude of feelings like relief, shock, and love, and cries before going to the other man and embracing him.
Catherine 🤝 Peter
Incredibly deep Mummy issues.
Anne Boleyn and Catherine the Great have really lovely designs!
WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT VLAD.
I cried so much when Catherine found him dead, he was such a sweet boy, i miss him. Also he and Mariel were such a couple, i stan them.
HUZZAH!🥂💥💖🫧
🎥 The Great (2020-3).
🎶 National Anthem, Lana Del Rey & Andrian. (Audio Edit).
Happy International Women's Day!
(In Brazilian Portuguese)
#you tried
It is probably the dirty story of history: that Catherine the Great (1727-1796), the lusty ruler of Russia, was so wild with sexual desire that one day she was screwing a horse when the harness broke and killed her. It's simply not true. Catherine liked officers of the Imperial Horse Guard, not the horses. Yes, Catherine also liked sex - one of her favorite toasts was "God grant us our desires and grant them quickly." This ruler of a vast empire had a dozen documented lovers (really, male mistresses) over her thirty-four years in power. But she had them one after another. This level of sexual consumption would hardly rate a footnote for most male monarchs; in fact, their virility might have been questioned. What was unusual about Catherine was how organized she was in selecting her lovers. She had a lady-in-waiting sample the man's prowess in bed and then she had a British doctor examine him for diseases. The young officer would soon be given 100,000 rubles and a country estate. No doubt what roiled foreign diplomats was that this woman, who was pretty when young, grew stout and gray, and at age sixty-two was still taking the likes of twenty-one-year-old Platon Zuboff to bed. That bred jealousies and rumormongering, and tales of horses. Actually, Catherine was one of the greatest and toughest female monarchs of all time: this German-born princess plotted the death of her dotty husband, Czar Peter III, she expanded the borders of Russia, crushed rebellions, built gorgeous palaces, and was a generous patron of the arts, corresponding personally with Voltaire and Diderot. How did she die? Catherine suffered a stroke on her way to the water closet and died on a straw mat three days later, with eyewitnesses there.
- "Catherine the Great and the Horse" from An Underground Education by Richard Zacks
girlsasboys:
Catherine the Great, on her favorite horse, clad in trousers.
treasuredthings:
statue of Sophie Auguste Friederike (Catherine the Great)
