#and visit charlotte in rome when she comebacks (again - as they did in irl)

[archduchessofnowhere]

Would you survive if in an attempt to wedge some 19th century French politics into the series they have Sisi's other pretty sister Mathilde married the exiled Duke of Orleans whose mother was Queen Victoria's first cousin (I'm kind of combining a bit of the Comte de Paris into the Comte d'Eu in my nonsense)?

Hello anon! I assume that by "the series" you mean Die Kaiserin right? Well Sisi's youngest sister Sophie married the younger brother of the Comte d'Eu. You don't need to invent anything to write the exiled Orléans into the series lol. But following a bit your AU, I guess they could make Alençon the elder brother instead? Or again, The Tudors route and fuse two sisters into one, giving "Mathilde" Sophie's storyline. Personally I would hate this though lol stop erasing Spatz!! She literally only appears in one scene in Visconti's Ludwig for two seconds.

Speaking of Sophie, @sisionscreen and I wondered if the screenwriters of Die Kaiserin would write her into the series next season or not. In the episode set in Possenhofen we see only three of Elisabeth's seven siblings: Marie, Mapperl and an unnamed little girl. As she is significantly younger than Marie she should be Sophie, however given that this show treats repeating names like an allergy I fear that if she appears next season she will also suffer from a name change.

Also I don't know if anyone remembers this, but in the first episode of Die Kaiserin we see one of Elisabeth's younger sisters, although she isn't named. I suppose she is now retroactively Marie, but I believe that in the novelization of the series she is Spatz. I can't say for certain though, as I haven't read it myself.

All this being said Katharina Eyssen has already her hands full with all the events that next season should cover, I don't know if she'll want to add another sister on top of that (unless she drops Marie's storyline and we don't get the Siege of Gaeta).