So, this is semi serious, though as PoD it might make for a good dark interlude in another timeline. One of those bizarre, insane tragedies that turn the fate of empires, like Francis I banging his head after tennis.
Sweeney Todd is an old London urban legend about a barber who would kill his victims in the barber's chair, then send them down a chute to a basement abbatoir, where his accomplice Ms. Lovett would butcher the remains and serve them up as meat pies in her shop on the first floor. Given the existence of serial killers like HH Mudgett (with his famous Murder Castle) or Burke & Hare in that era, it's hardly out of the question that a pair like Lovett and Todd could exist in an alternate London. Forget all the side-story from the movies-they're just a pair of psychopathic butchers.
So, let's take for our setting the winter of 1892. Just 3 years after Jack the Ripper, more disappearances are plaguing London, this time caused by our Todd and Lovett. Additionally, Prince Albert Victor has just died, leaving Prince of Wales Albert Edward (to be King Edward VII in just 9 years) grief stricken. One evening in early February, feeling the pain in his home too great to bear, he bundles up and ditches his guards, wandering the city of London alone. After being recognized and mobbed, he decides to duck into a small upstairs barber shop to trim off his famous beard so he can have a few bloody hours of peace to grieve.
That night, Ms. Lovett delights her patrons with a "Princely Pie Special", from a fresh shipment of "fat-marbled English beef." All is well and good, until one young dandy cracks his tooth on a gold pinky ring, which he immediately recognizes from a drawing of the Prince of Wales. He calls attention to it, and a mob of shocked customers storm the back rooms and find the horribly maimed but recognizeable Crown Prince dead on the slab. Ms. Lovett is captured by the crowd and turned over to Scotland Yard barely alive, but Todd manages to escape when he hears the furious disruption downstairs. Over the course of the grim investigation, the police discover the pair have been feeding the citizens of London human flesh for about a year. Personal effects of at least 50 victims are found, and some in Scotland Yard theorize the total death toll could be north of 100.
A few questions, then, for discussion:
1. What affects would this have on the British psyche? On the reputation of the monarchy? To have even a ceremonial heir to the throne killed in this manner would be shocking, to say the least. Would the Ripper terror strike again, but even worse?
2. Would Queen Victoria live through this? She had already been through a decades-long mourning over her beloved Albert.
3. George V is coming to the throne earlier. How much earlier? And how will this affect relations with closely related monarchies like Germany and Russia?
4. Could Todd (or whatever his name is in this ATL) manage to get out of London alive? Where could he go? How far would the British go to apprehend him? War? Worse, what if he's a member of an "outsider" group in England? French, German, American, Russian, Jewish, etc. Reprisals and international relations debacles could result.
5. The trial of Lovett, or Lovett and Todd if he's captured alive. It's hard to see any possibility but death, but the circus of such a trial and the possibilities of riot and panic provides fertile ground for change in itself. Particularly, I could see a repeat of the "Affair of the Poisons" in France, where Lovett spins stories about a whole network of secret cannibals in London to try and keep the police investigating while postponing her own date with the hangman.
6. Finally, health and safety! Food safety was improving in this era, but wouldn't reach full flower till after WW1. What could happen here? Angry mobs storming butcher shops to look for human victims? Legislation to mandate regular inspections? Widespread vegetarianism decades earlier?
Apologies if this is too macabre, I was watching the movie earlier and had the idea, and simply couldn't get it out of my head before setting it down.
Gore warning, but a representative scene from the movie version of the musical about Sweeney Todd for those who have no idea what this would seem like.
Sweeney Todd is an old London urban legend about a barber who would kill his victims in the barber's chair, then send them down a chute to a basement abbatoir, where his accomplice Ms. Lovett would butcher the remains and serve them up as meat pies in her shop on the first floor. Given the existence of serial killers like HH Mudgett (with his famous Murder Castle) or Burke & Hare in that era, it's hardly out of the question that a pair like Lovett and Todd could exist in an alternate London. Forget all the side-story from the movies-they're just a pair of psychopathic butchers.
So, let's take for our setting the winter of 1892. Just 3 years after Jack the Ripper, more disappearances are plaguing London, this time caused by our Todd and Lovett. Additionally, Prince Albert Victor has just died, leaving Prince of Wales Albert Edward (to be King Edward VII in just 9 years) grief stricken. One evening in early February, feeling the pain in his home too great to bear, he bundles up and ditches his guards, wandering the city of London alone. After being recognized and mobbed, he decides to duck into a small upstairs barber shop to trim off his famous beard so he can have a few bloody hours of peace to grieve.
That night, Ms. Lovett delights her patrons with a "Princely Pie Special", from a fresh shipment of "fat-marbled English beef." All is well and good, until one young dandy cracks his tooth on a gold pinky ring, which he immediately recognizes from a drawing of the Prince of Wales. He calls attention to it, and a mob of shocked customers storm the back rooms and find the horribly maimed but recognizeable Crown Prince dead on the slab. Ms. Lovett is captured by the crowd and turned over to Scotland Yard barely alive, but Todd manages to escape when he hears the furious disruption downstairs. Over the course of the grim investigation, the police discover the pair have been feeding the citizens of London human flesh for about a year. Personal effects of at least 50 victims are found, and some in Scotland Yard theorize the total death toll could be north of 100.
A few questions, then, for discussion:
1. What affects would this have on the British psyche? On the reputation of the monarchy? To have even a ceremonial heir to the throne killed in this manner would be shocking, to say the least. Would the Ripper terror strike again, but even worse?
2. Would Queen Victoria live through this? She had already been through a decades-long mourning over her beloved Albert.
3. George V is coming to the throne earlier. How much earlier? And how will this affect relations with closely related monarchies like Germany and Russia?
4. Could Todd (or whatever his name is in this ATL) manage to get out of London alive? Where could he go? How far would the British go to apprehend him? War? Worse, what if he's a member of an "outsider" group in England? French, German, American, Russian, Jewish, etc. Reprisals and international relations debacles could result.
5. The trial of Lovett, or Lovett and Todd if he's captured alive. It's hard to see any possibility but death, but the circus of such a trial and the possibilities of riot and panic provides fertile ground for change in itself. Particularly, I could see a repeat of the "Affair of the Poisons" in France, where Lovett spins stories about a whole network of secret cannibals in London to try and keep the police investigating while postponing her own date with the hangman.
6. Finally, health and safety! Food safety was improving in this era, but wouldn't reach full flower till after WW1. What could happen here? Angry mobs storming butcher shops to look for human victims? Legislation to mandate regular inspections? Widespread vegetarianism decades earlier?
Apologies if this is too macabre, I was watching the movie earlier and had the idea, and simply couldn't get it out of my head before setting it down.
Gore warning, but a representative scene from the movie version of the musical about Sweeney Todd for those who have no idea what this would seem like.
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