“Il Duce” was the recipient of mob justice, resulting in a summary execution by firing squad from local Italian partisans in April 1945. Or perhaps just as likely is seeing an end similar to that of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. There is no doubt Smith would have also shared their ultimate fate, death by hanging following a guilty verdict. If viewed within the scope of historic post-World War II war crime indictments and prosecution, a man fitting the profile of John Smith most certainly would have stood in the dock alongside figures such as Göering or Ribbontrop at Nuremberg, facing charges for crimes against humanity, waging wars of abject aggression, and genocide for their respective roles in perpetrating the Holocaust. John Smith, in total, has blood up to his elbows. As well as Rudolph Wegener (Carsten Norgaard) speaking about their deeds together in Cincinnati “spilling blood,” and Wegener’s observation that afterward Smith no longer entertains his passion for sailing – alluding to the audience an intense personal guilt harbored by Smith. From the Neutral Zone escapee book store owner found and killed in Season 1 by the Marshal (Burn Gorman). The multiple, however subtle, references to a Cincinnati extermination camp critically allude to this fact. In addition to being an SS Oberst-Gruppenführer in his everyday work to keep enemies of the Reich at bay, he has also been involved in mass-murder, ethnic cleansing, and outright genocide. When looking into the nature of Smith’s collaboration with the Reich, upon deeper inspection, Smith is a man who has no shortage of blood on his hands in his personal complicity. on December 11th, 1945 by Nazi Germany ( Note: This is the four year anniversary historically of Nazi Germany’s declaration of war on the United States). Hardly the least of Oberst-Gruppenführer Smith’s soul crushing experiences was viewing, with Helen at a considerable distance, the atomic bombing of Washington D.C. The Man in the High Castle Universe: How the Axis Won WW2 Smith remarks that it is a reminder of “the consequences of the failure of command.” A clear indication that the US military of their timeline was not nearly as effective and successful as our own, and fatally so. As shown in the Season 2 episode, “Duck and Cover,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido asks why he displays a medal from his US military service during the Solomon Islands campaign. After the economic collapse, Helen describes their life with the words, “We had nothing, we had less than nothing.” Smith is clearly a man who remembers the economic inequity of the Depression in the defunct United States, and his fallen position within it.Īdditionally Smith’s US Army experience, to the extent that we know of it, was a near crippling experience. John in particular was raised in a family of considerable means, prior to the onset of the Great Depression. When one looks back to season one, recall the conversation Helen Smith has with Joe Blake during V-A Day, revealing for the first time part of the Smith’s backstory. His feelings about his previous allegiance to the US haunt him deeply and influence his current choices. Both to fulfill his own ends – namely the protection of his family – and to be used as an agent to achieve the darkest ends of the Nazi regime. As a former US Army Signals officer ( See: Sigint), Smith made the leap to collaborate with the Nazi occupiers at some unknown juncture following their invasion. Yet Smith’s personal level of accommodation is clearly greater than most every other in The Man in the High Castle universe: he is a collaborator. He, like the vast majority of those who came before him – as well as those he shares the screen with – has made some level of accommodation to the brutal foreign rule of a satanic enemy. John Smith is, in many regards, an every man type that emerges during a foreign totalitarian occupation and subjugation similar to those which occurred in Europe during the Second World War. So, who is this friend/enemy/criminal-against-humanity/loving father and husband? More to the point, Rufus Sewell has truly stolen the show thus far, which is no small statement given his fellow headliners. So much so that many viewers are not even sure he is in fact a villain as he is seen to possess many contradictory stripes. Newly promoted Oberst-Gruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell) is perhaps the most complicated and deeply conflicted antagonist on the show.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |