sholio | Excerpted emails re: Biggles Follows On

The following exchange this morning was too much fun not to share. It references the first couple of chapters of Biggles Follows On, in which Cold War spy hijinks occur, as well as canon-typical flirting.

scioscribe: Started this last night, and I'm extremely amused to see that it begins with Ginger spotting von Stalhein in London and LITERALLY ALL of Biggles's friends being like, "We should report him to some kind of higher authority immediately and possibly have him arrested," while Biggles is 100% like, "Hmm, I don't know. Maybe we should just keep an eye on him ourselves and make thinking about von Stalhein our brand new job. And isn't he just so noble and honorable and skilled? I will now defend spies in general and von Stalhein in particular for half an hour. And we can't get him arrested for nothing, can we? Oh, you have an actual charge? Well ... that's not really important, is it? I vote we still just keep monitoring the situation."

Biggles's friends: "HE'S TRIED TO KILL YOU."
Biggles: "Ha, yes, he does do that sometimes." *stares wistfully off into space*

sholio: I KNOW. Also, the very first thing Biggles asks, IIRC, is "How did he look?" Not "what's he up to" or ANY OF THE OTHER REASONABLE QUESTIONS that one could ask about one's archenemy turning up in England, but more like:

Biggles: How'd he look? Did he look well? Is he sleeping okay? What was he wearing? I need to visualize this properly.
Biggles's friends: ....

scioscribe: YES. That is 100% the vibe. Biggles wants to know 1) are his fantasy images still accurate and 2) should he bring him soup.

sholio: I now feel it would be ENTIRELY in character for Biggles to decide that von Stalhein looks like he's not taking care of himself and actually show up to bring him soup. Picture it: Von Stalhein has managed to sneak into England on a fake passport, such sneaky, very spy, feeling very good about himself, and then there's a knock on the door of the lodgings he's rented under an assumed name and it's Biggles with tea, soup, and strict instructions to take it easy until he gets over that lingering cold.

scioscribe: Honestly, if you told me that happened in the books, I'd believe you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He does actually work with the Soviets during the early stages of WW2, he's a German liaison to the Soviets during the Winter War, so this makes sense. Maybe he made some friends then who were willing to trust him again once the Cold War got going.

Or!

rachelmanija had a theory that he was a double agent during WW2. Maybe he was, but he was a double agent for the Russians.

The Russians actually seem like an easier sell for him as a double agent than Britain. Or at least, not a harder sell.

He would have certainly had more occasion for contacts with the Soviet side if he worked for the Reichswehr, and as part of his job without starting out as working against German interest. Considering how it seems that much of the German army was apparently camped out in Russia to undermine Versailles and sometimes the democratically elected government in various military-industrial joint ventures... if he started out as a monarchist during WWI, and had the typical attitude of landed gentry in the military towards the Weimar Republic and hates Versailles, it would be certainly in character if he ends up secretly rebuilding the military there.

And then he turns against the Nazis at some point during WWII, and picks his old Soviet contacts because that's the most realistic option for him to secretly work against them.

And then you can have him either remain opportunistically post-1945, or just too deeply entangled, or actually have one of these weird 20th century ideological shifts that people had.

Excerpted emails re: Biggles Follows On

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