fandomhigh | Mad Kings & Queens, Week XII [Monday, Period 4]

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mad kings & queens

Mad Kings & Queens, Week XII [Monday, Period 4]

"I'm deviating from the syllabus again," Ghanima announced from her perch on her desk, legs kicking against its front lightly as the students filed in. "Mostly because I am quite bored with it right now."

"So instead of Anna I of Russia, we're going to skip to a different Anna; Anna of Saxony, a woman that was not very good at dealing with limits."

"Anna of Saxony was the only child and heiress of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and Agnes, eldest daughter of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. She was the second wife of William the Silent."

"Anna was reputedly unattractive and lame, but her wealth drew many suitors. She accepted the suit of William I of Orange, and they were married on August 25, 1561. Her new husband, while thrilled about her dowry, soon discovered that Anna was unstable. Her unattractive combination of melancholic, aggressive, and suicidal tendencies, an excessive lack of financial restraint, and propensity towards very public adultery made her a liability of unprecedented scale.

"Anna's childhood had been troubled. By the age of eleven she had lost bother her parents and she grew up a lonely and self-indulged only child. She had a long line of mentally unstable relatives, and many of her uncles and cousins were said to have suffered from mental illnesses that ranged from severe depression to complete mental collapse."

"It's unsurprising, then, that Anna's behavior was distinctly unconventional from the early days of her marriage. Pregnancy apparently pushed her over the edge - most like a bout of what's currently known as postpartum depression - and it rendered her vulnerable to increasingly irrepressible emotional episodes. Political pressures and war in the Low Countries took William away from home, leaving Anna alone, and free to indulge her excessive boredom by partying wildly and then wallowing in despair, during which times she refused daylight, food, and visitors for days on end. The death of her first child in its early infancy, and two further pregnancies in rapid succession within the next two years only served to aggravated her psyche. Abandoning all conventions of modesty and motherhood, she overindulged in alcohol, neglected her children, and grew increasingly aggressive and suicidal."

"Events climaxed in 1564, when William decided to remove the children from her care for their safety. Anna at once withdrew herself from court and turned a deaf ear to her husband's pleas for frugality and respectability. While he was still off waging war, she began a very public campaign of her own, getting exceedingly inebriated, accusing him of sexual ineptitude, and living a life of outrageous and hedonistic excess. She wasn't just indiscreet with her lovers - she often conducted her affairs in public, without a care for who saw her," Ghanima said. "It's quite possible that Anna inspired some of the first public indecency laws. Nevertheless, William continued to write to her, pleading with her to regain some sense of decorum and return home. But his pleas for a more modest lifestyle were in vain. Always in public, Anna mocked his letters and tore them up."

"She took up with her lawyer, Jan Rubens, in 1570 and gave birth to their illegitimate daughter, Christina, on August 22, 1571. It was the final straw. News of this indiscretion reached her husband, who refused to acknowledge Christina as his own. Anna was sent to Beilstein castle along with Christina. Her behavior became ever more deranged, until the servants were ordered to keep all knives away from her, lest she attack someone. Anna began to suffer from hallucinations and violent outbursts. Christina was removed from her care and sent to be raised with her half-siblings. William annulled their marriage, and Anna lived out the rest of her days in Dresden, until her death aged thirty-two in 1577."

[~~Wait for the~~ OCD up!]

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"That second one, so far as I've seen," Reno decided. "My last boss was one hell of a brat, and he had some pretty messed up notions he tried to follow in order to keep control, and between the lethal, incurable disease, and being inside the world's largest building when it blew up, somehow, he's still alive."

There was a hint of awe in Reno's voice at that. And probably a bit of grouchiness as well.

"Your last boss," she said, eyes a bit wide, "is badass. I mean, you've got to respect that sort of tenacity, you know? Wow."

Really now.

"And curse it, I guess, if you want him gone." A beat. "Like cockroaches! They just don't die."

"Nevermind badass. He was on the top floor when the building blew. I'm beginnin' to think Shinra is freakin' invincible, yo." Reno scoffed at that, and then shook his head and pressed on. "We should put that one on the list, yo. The crazy ones? Always the hardest to kill, damn them anyhow."

"Well," she said, considering the logistics of that, "at least that means he didn't have the building falling on him as well? So less crushy-crushy and more fally-falling, but." Something?

"That's totally going on the list," she said, jotting it down in-between her scribbles. "And maybe, a lot of times, you notice that the craziest ones have the most charisma? Something 'bout the crazy makes people want to give them power. Which makes us all crazy, I guess."

"Craziest guy I ever knew had his own freakin' fan club, used a bottle of shampoo and conditioner a day, and then tried to take over the world in the name of a freakish creature from space that also happened to be part of his DNA," Reno mused. "Charisma totally goes on the list, yo. Crazy people are tough to kill and easy to look at."

It made perfect sense where Reno was from, anyhow.

Ino contemplated that one, while she wrote down charisma.

"Or, really," she said, "hard to look away from. They might not be traditionally attractive, but try saying that to one of their followers and RAR, and all that."

She studied the list. "How're we supposed to know when their decisions cross the line? I mean, some crazy people start slow, and others have crazy ideas that turn out to be not so crazy once they've been gone through with."

"I think things like tryin' to end the world and choosin' to crush an eighth of a city are pretty clear signs of that," Reno decided. "So, uh. How's brainless destruction of... large amounts of people?"

Yeah. Something like that. "I mean, killin' people has its use, don't get me wrong, but sometimes the line draws itself real nice and clear. Like when Ghani was talkin' about Vlad." Reno liked the lesson on Vlad. "He wasn't killin' to get ahead. He was killin' because he liked to include mangled body parts in his home decoratin', yo."

At the rate they were going, Reno realized, he was kind of starting to fit under the 'crazy' category, himself.

"What do you count as brainless?" she said, frowning and not yet writing that down. "I mean, yeah, I get that what Vlad was doing was totally crazy, not to mention, ew, home decorating with body parts, really Reno? But I mean, sometimes, uh, the annihilation of a village, or part of a city, might be the reasonable thing to do."

Because sanity was totally winning over in this corner. Only not.

"I mean, like..." Reno frowned thoughtfully at that one. "I dunno. There's a time and a place, you know? Killin' just because killin' feels good is more what I mean, I guess. When somethin' could be better handled some other way, and that don't happen because a body count is more... fun?"

Reno was still trying to figure out the distinction, himself.

"Maybe not fun. Well, fun is kind of an obvious crazy, if that's the only reason. Uh. I mean..." Dammit. "Can we leave the city thing off the list? The more I think on that one, it wasn't crazy, it was just... Desperate. And... I dunno. To get what he wanted, it was a smart move, too."

If a little extreme.

Just a tad. They were probably not the best two to be deciding what was insane or not.

Or perhaps they were...?

"We can," she said, nodding a bit, "'cause, yeah, that could well, I don't know 'bout the whys and whats of it, but just on the surface that sounds like something that might be done for a good reason, you know?" She nibbled on her pen cap. "Maybe, crazy is... killing for the sake of killing, and no other reason?"

"That'll do," Reno agreed. "Tryin' to hand the planet over to an alien creature is probably a different point on the list, anyhow."

They were perfect to figure out the crazy points, really. They probably knew 'crazy' quite intimately. "You got somethin' else? The best I can come up with from here is that crazy guys usually got that high-pitched, real freakin' annoyin' laugh, too. You know, the one where they throw their head back and everyone reaches for the earplugs?"

She laughed at that, while scribbling down their third point. "Owww," Ino said, giggling. "I'd try and give a demonstration, but I think I'd get things thrown at me if I started cackling like a mad person."

Ino nibbled on her pen cap more. "Um. Maybe... a lot of times the crazy is good at attracting followers, but most crazy doesn't care 'bout their followers. They're just... fodder for, like, furthering their uses. I mean, all leaders got to have some level of being able to do that, but if you can sacrifice your followers and not care at all, then that's pretty crazy, I think."

Reno went kind of quiet, at that. And then he nodded his agreement, slowly.

"That's a good one," he replied, his tone dropping a few notes to something a little quieter and a little tired. "Write that down."

She did, looking almost apologetic.

"It is one," she said. "Ichigo asked a bit ago if I'd kill my teammates if I was ordered to 'cause they betrayed the village." Ino twirled her pen around in her hand. "I said I would, but Hokage-sama wouldn't be likely to assign the mission to me."

Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "I guess that's a kind of crazy too, yeah? I love my team, but I'd follow orders, and hate myself forever if it came to that."

"Ain't crazy," Reno replied evenly. "It's smart. Keeps you alive. Sayin' 'no' to an order means you ain't useful no more. Means they might never know when you're gonna turn on 'em. Means you're a liability."

He lifted a shoulder slightly. "Bein' on the run don't do nobody no good. Especially when less than half the team actually makes it through in the end just because they all said no to takin' out the one guy, yoto."

"Maybe it's only crazy if you're not in a job like that," she mused. "'Cause he certainly acted like it was crazy. But when it comes to my village, or my friends, that's a nasty choice, but the village wins out. If it didn't, then I'm not longer qualified as a shinobi."

"And I wouldn't have been a Turk no more," Reno agreed, tapping the eraser of his pencil against the desk and frowning. "You do the job. No matter what... Because that's what you are. People at the top who respect that, they're smart. Good to be workin' under. But there are some missions they shouldn't throw at you, even if you'll do 'em without fail anyhow. And it ain't like they don't know the difference."

...

"But then, if we don't do 'em, nobody will. So I dunno if that belongs there or not, more I think about the job."

She nodded slowly.

"It's like, what I said 'bout Hokage-sama not being likely to assign me a mission like that--she could, and I'd do it, but I'd be... broken after. So she wouldn't be likely to, 'cause I'm more useful not-broken, than broken like that. But there's some missions they shouldn't give people, but have to, and then sometimes even though that's awful... it's a bit of an honour, too? 'Cause they give the mission to you, trusting you'll do it. That you're strong enough."

She tugged at her hair. "Maybe that's not so crazy, even when is sucks beyond words."

Reno shut his eyes and took a breath, and then opened them again and nodded.

"Yeah. That one sucks. But maybe it ain't so crazy, after all." He paused for a moment to consider. "But there's a difference between not carin' about the help and bein' flat-out cruel to 'em. Sendin' 'em on somethin' like a suicide mission because the mission is important in the war, that's one thing. Tellin' 'em to kill someone close to 'em who doesn't gotta die, just to prove their loyalty, though? That'd be different, I think."

Another hair tug, this one a bit harder.

"That," she said slowly, "I think depends on the situation. If your loyalty needs proving, then why--what did the person in that situation do to make the leader doubt them? Because I... don't think I can fault someone for wanting it proven when there's a real reason for doubt. It's like, if people're aiming for mission suicide--when they want to get killed out on a mission, not 'cause it's a suicide mission--there's a lot of issues and most the time they don't ever come back to active duty 'cause Hokage-sama can't trust them in the field. But if it's just no trust, for no reason, then that's crazy, I think. Trust has to start somewhere."

She was right, and Reno knew it. He hated it. But he knew it.

"Maybe we should just leave the way they treat the peons offa the list entirely," he decided, and then he stuck the end of his pencil into his mouth and bit at the eraser. Which was intended to be slightly less annoying than the tapping he had been doing with it against the desk. "And move on to somethin' else. Mood swings? Not just fits, like tantrums or whatever, but real big differences between angry an' happy an' sad, for no apparent reason? That kinda seems like it might fit."

"'Less it's a super scary case of PMS, or pregnancy hormones," she said, making a face at that, and double-checking her list. "But then, if the leader goes batshit once a month you can make a pretty guess as to why."

"But if it's impossible to, like, time or anything, or predict then that's probably a pretty good indication." A beat. "Sometimes. Sometimes leader's do that crap 'cause it's good for making the minions underestimate them--I mean, I'd fear a leader who was insane, but it's not the same sort of fear that you'd have against someone who was coolly calculating everything, you know? So maybe that...?"

"On purpose or not, if it's somethin' that leads to dangerous shit goin' down, unpredictable actions like that mean it's probably a good idea to get 'em out before they do some kinda real lastin' damage, yo." He paused to think on that a moment more. "Within reason, I guess. There's a difference between suddenly demanding that your lackeys go out right now to get you a bathtub full of fish, and makin' them do it or else you'll hack off their head or somethin', yo."

"On the other hand," she said, grinning a bit at that, "them asking for a bathtub of fish ain't much of a threat to anyone 'less you're allergic to fish. So while that might get some seriously dubious glances, most of us would be all 'yes sir, right away sir' and go out and get the fish. It's nothing that would hurt anyone, 'cept the fish."

She was getting side-tracked by the fish, and twirled her pen around for a moment to try to get her focus back. "It depends on the unpredictability, maybe? If it's dangerous unpredictable shit, then they probably aren't going to stay in power for long, but if it's, like, a hankering for a guy wearing nightgowns with ruffles and lace, or bathtubs full of fish, it's not a big deal? As long as the orders for what's important are still on-kilter, then that doesn't sound too bad."

Reno nodded his agreement.

"Right. The boss before the last boss liked to coop up in an amusement park hotel and roleplay with his mistresses, yo. Was weirder'n shit, but it didn't never hurt nobody, yo."

Well. Until illegitimate offspring got cranky and decided to exact their revenge, but that wasn't really the assignment.

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