The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime

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Given that Nicole Dormer's is Goebbel's 'niece', her arrest could have weakened him politically

 

Something worth noting. I just rewatched season 2, and judging by a background poster, it looks like the Germans got a man on the moon in 1959.

 

Finished this off tonight. It would have been better if it had ended with Smith's suicide, bearing the weight that he hates what he has done, he hates who he became, and hates that all he sacrificed still didn’t help him protect his family.

I also wish he had seen more throughout the series about the american military for the Whitcroft move to make sense. They did a nice job in the final season setting up how the Nazis got so many members of the US armed forces to join with the Germans. But you saw a few hints that those folks who switched sides might have regretted it or would have wanted to move against the Nazis at some point (notice the Omar Bradley reference).

 

I'd say it's quite likely that Germany would be having or have had a civil war by then, because at some point their leadership's penchant for palace coups and purges will get out of hand. Thus there could have been some rather significant changes in Germany's empire, especially if the civil war goes nuclear.

 

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Agreed with most of review, there are a lot of interesting concept in this series that either ended up suddenly dropped in the background (the Jahr Null, Frank art serving as a resistance symbols, nazi spying in OTL) or being too suddenly introduced (the BCR).

Most of the global events of the later half of the season makes not a lot of sense. I mean, why the Japanese pull out so suddenly and agree on the Reich providing them oil, when they used an embargo as a weapon in the earlier season ? There was an interesting plot device to use in the form of an “American” puppet government set in place by the Japanese and both the BCR and the American Reich trying to undermine it, with the former knowing than a sudden collapse would lead to a Reich invasion and their extermination.

Same with Whitecroft, he seemed to be an interesting character but his first scene (shooting resistance fighters and pleading for invading the pacific States) introduce him as an hardliner, so why the fuck does he seems to have a sudden change of mind and reject Nazism in the end ?

If John Smith (IIRC) seems to agree that carpet bombing the West Coast is a bad idea and might makes the occupation very costly, why the fuck does he stick to the original “GeneralPlan America” after effectively becoming Führer of the US ?

And from where the fuck did this “Coup d’état in the Nazi Reich” plot device came from ? There was a good opportunity to have the same effect on the overall stories by using the idea of a powerstruggle between like, Old Guard Military and Jahre Null fanatics after Himmler assassination.



On the other hand, really liked the overall character development of Smith on a “personal level”. His last scene with Helen (and her last words) was very good. Kind of regret they didn’t played more with the idea of OTL, but I guess production was force to end the show with this season (and that Man in the High Castle: Interdimensional Portal War might have been a bit cheesy).


Will not comment the last scene as creator interview stating that “the spectator should interpret as they want” show a clear laziness on their part.

Good Show overall, really liked the attention they gave to the small background & atmosphere details, such as the nazi art-déco and the propaganda poster, made the universe feel very alive.

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Totally agree with you on the BCR. The idea by itself was very good, as blacks in this TL would have both the number, the incentive and the “community” spirit to form an efficient Resistance nucleus.

However, the idea itself came literally from nowhere (and why didn’t they tried to attach it to Frank “inspiring” Resistance?), and they should have played more on the idea of them being the bigger fish in a the large pond of the various Resistance movement (there was only one sense in that sense with the Aztlan and Jewish fighter planning the defense with them).

I guess they wanted to present Bell as a strong (almost Mary Sueish tbh) character, but the naivete of the BCR ignoring the possibility of nazis rushing up to set up Death Camps if the Japanese pulled back was really annoying, especially after what happens in Denver earlier in the season.

 

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To be fair, the BCR did say that they never expected to be running the JPS and only wanted some kind of black Israel. It’s not so much ‘they didn’t see the Nazi invasion coming’ as ‘they didn’t actually expect the JPS to just give up so easily.’ Like a dog catching a car, only the car turns into a grizzly bear the moment the dog bites down on it. They had no reason to see that coming.

 

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I think another character (Lemuel ?) mentioned to them that it’s the nazis, with their genocidal plans that should be their main worries, not the Japanese who are just an other occupiers/oppressor. Would have make more sense to have the BCR powerbase located in the Neutral, with an eventual japanese support when the latter want to cause trouble in the American Reich.

But TBH in this whole plotline, I’m more puzzled about Japan suddenly doing a total evacuation. OK, the scene with Kido and Smith seems to imply that they plan to hand it as a “poisonous gift” and hope the Reich to end up tangled in a nightmarish guerillas war. But on the other hand, the previous seasons stated that the oil flow from the Pacific States was vital to their war effort, and as I mentioned the Reich already played the “oil embargo card” before.

As with a most of the final season, it seemed that the writers had to rush for a conclusion and were decided to force some sort of “happy ending”.

 

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The poison pill theory doesn’t make much sense, unless you assume the Japanese are clueless as to the Nazis’ capabilities and intentions. They’ve already successfully carried out genocide over multiple continents, and they obviously have the means to continue this. The ability to hide among the general population was critical to the BCR’s success. That wouldn’t work in a scenario where people are killed for their race alone.

 

I'm sorry, but the more I think of it, the stupider the BCR was to include. As I said earlier, they're incredibly short sighted. It'd be wiser to wait out the Japanese rather than say "hey, let's try to get independence, hope the Empire recognizes a majority-black communist republic, and assume the Nazis don't send their armies across the Rockies to finally have access to the Pacific Ocean." I'd rather have the American Resistance (which btw, had many different races involved), which we had seen grow since Season 1, rise up against the Japanese and Germans and see a full-scale rebellion happen. Or straight up have them be the Black Panthers, who would actually be willing to work alongside other groups for the same objective (my eyes rolled to the back of my head when whatsherface said she won't work with white resistance members, like for God's sake you're literally trying to get the same thing. China did it in 1937.)

Another thing, the BCR taking over the airwaves in German America probably only hurt them more, considering how brainwashed the population is, it'd be a rallying cry against them and lead to more racism and hatred against them. Not sure how an organization with unrealistic goals and stupid leadership was able to evict Japan from the west coast.

 

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Honestly, if the BCR did succeed in taking a city and Nazi America didn’t want to bother with the effort to retake it, they’d probably just nuke the city. That being said, I doubt they’d have to go through the effort. There will be plenty of whites who would collaborate with the Nazis. They had the experience of Asian overlords leaving them to the mercy of black separatists, who would either forcibly evict them from territory or rule over them, affording them no representation as possible. Putting up a tiny resistance movement against a rising, genocidal superpower? How did the writers think that is going to end?

Another sequel idea which omits multiverse stuff entirely: the utterly predictable happens. Some other Nazi higher up takes control of America after Smith’s death as Reichsfuhrer. After a period of mourning, he immediately resumes the war of conquest against the Pacific States, which rolls over the BCR/Resistance like it was nothing. The East Americans implement the Final Solution in the West, finding plenty of collaborators among the white population. A conquest of Mexico follows, and now Japan and Germany have to deal with a unified North American juggernaut.

 

I honestly kept forgetting that they were communist at all, aside from one mention of them abolishing property sarcastically.

Could've just called them the Black rebellion or African Liberation Front and it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

 

I don’t think it was sarcasm. Elijah, at least, was open about his contempt for Bell’s bourgie homeownership ambitions and his dislike of luxurious accommodations.

 

So was their ever an explanation for why Tagomi got written out of the show suddenly?

 

Filming conflict iirc, he was scheduled to be in something else at the same time.

 

Ah alright then.

I think we just have to accept that the writers weren’t very good at naming factions.

 

Could have been worse.

They could have renamed California ‘East Nippon’ or something.

 

I think it could be explained that the 'Black Communist Rebellion' is a name the Japanese or Nazis gave to them, while their REAL name is probably New African Liberation Front or something. That said, seeing 'Greater Nazi Reich' plastered all over walls and posters in the scenery was jarring. Names weren't this show's strong suit.

You could probably explain it away by just saying the Nazi Americans nuke the area of the portal once they hear that the Resistance have taken it over. Rather than risking the possibility of fighting a multiversal war, they just bomb the area to be sure. I'm not sure exactly where its located, but it doesn't look to be a populated area, so a surgical strike would do, to prevent any multiversal threats.

 

Yes, thank you! The BCR was asking to be exterminated en-masse with their unrealistic goals of black nationhood.

To be fair, the Second United Front was not all sunshines and rainbows. The Nationalists and the Communists both knew the alliance would be temporary and it would be business as usual when the Japanese were kicked out of China. Hell, the Communists deliberately let the Nationalists suffer the brunt of the war so they could build up for after the war.

If it weren't for the war in China, I doubt the BCR's attack on the Crimson Pipeline would've hurt Japan that much.

 

It's particularly silly that Wyatt has to tell the BCR that if they succeed at getting the Japanese to leave, the Nazis will be after them and they'll be screwed on their own. So...the genocide survivors need to be told the people who committed genocide against them will launch an invasion to finish the job if the present group of totalitarian, but so far non-genocidal overlords depart.

On the one hand, I like the BCR in principle, especially since the Resistance of the first two seasons was either useless or plain harmful, but on the other so much about them makes no sense. I get the impression the writers wanted the story to end on an uplifting note, as much as that is possible in a world where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan continue to exist as superpowers, but in their attempt to do so, they did not think things through. Realistically, I do not believe the BCR would survive the end of season 4 for long. From a narrative standpoint, the decision to have them never fight the Nazis is also a bit strange.

 

Agreed that the BCR didn’t have much of a plan beyond getting Japan to leave, but really that is pretty common among revolutionary groups. It’s much harder to build and sustain than to tear down.

I think the Japanese made the right call in walking away. They did the math and figured that holding China was far more important than holding California. The BCR could of course had their cake and eaten it too by being willing to have their own state within the Japanese empire.