Timeline for Why aren't Japanese war crimes a part of The Man in the High Castle?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 14, 2017 at 14:33 | comment | added | MissMonicaE | @Nathan Right, but it seems likely to me that in a universe where we lose the war, atrocities would also be committed against Americans on a similar scale to those committed against the Chinese and Koreans--ie why wasn't there a Rape of San Francisco as well as a Rape of Nanking? I mentioned the real-world commission of atrocities against Americans and other Allied forces because that makes it seem less likely that the Japanese would be more magnanimous in victory over us than over the Chinese and Koreans. | |
| Jun 13, 2017 at 23:40 | comment | added | user22478 | OK, if atrocities did take place as in our world then the vast majority were perpetrated against the Chinese, Koreans and other Asian nations and the British and Commonwealth forces in south-east Asia. Most of these war crimes only became widely known in the west after the end of WW2 in our timeline. Since the Axis powers are the victors in this world, it's likely that knowledge of these events has since been suppressed or revised (note that even in our world there are Holocaust deniers etc.) so it's reasonable to suppose the surviving U.S. society has never had opportunity to hear about them. | |
| Jun 13, 2017 at 21:06 | comment | added | MissMonicaE | @Nathan I'm not wondering why they're not the focus, just why they're so unmentioned as to not affect any of the characters at all, i.e. if they did happen (in the fictional universe), why doesn't anyone seem to remember them or be traumatized by them? I'm not familiar with Valkyrie or The Hurt Locker, but if they contain characters who "should" have been victims yet seem unaffected, I'd have the same question (especially insofar as those crimes are also the subject of wacky historical revisionism). | |
| Jun 12, 2017 at 20:20 | comment | added | user22478 | Sorry but I think this is a nonsensical question, it's like asking why concentration camps don't feature more heavily in Valkyrie, or why The Hurt Locker doesn't talk about Abu Ghraib. The story doesn't mention Japanese atrocities because that isn't what the book is about, which is not to say that they didn't occur (I think we can assume they did, as the war up to a point seems to have progressed as it did in the real world). | |
| Jun 12, 2017 at 19:58 | comment | added | NKCampbell | history is written by the victors | |
| Jun 12, 2017 at 12:26 | vote | accept | MissMonicaE | ||
| Jun 10, 2017 at 22:43 | answer | added | MissMonicaE | timeline score: 16 | |
| May 7, 2017 at 3:09 | comment | added | Steve-O | Given the significance Japanese culture puts on honour and duty AND the fact that the Axis won the war in this universe, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they simply denied any wrongdoing after the dust settled. Everything they did was "for the Empire" and "had to be done," etc. The winners write the history books and all that. | |
| May 6, 2017 at 23:10 | comment | added | MissMonicaE | @zabeus or at least massacres of POWs, or something | |
| May 6, 2017 at 22:41 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackSciFi/status/860987872874287104 | ||
| May 6, 2017 at 21:21 | comment | added | MissMonicaE | @zabeus yes, exactly | |
| May 6, 2017 at 20:50 | comment | added | Z. Cochrane | I perhaps incorrectly assumed in the show that "you and every other woman we know" weren't raped, but I guess you are saying there are so many incidents of that happening it would be surprising if it didn't. | |
| May 6, 2017 at 20:48 | comment | added | Shamshiel | Well, even Nazi war crimes are really only mentioned in passing among high-ranking Nazis who are drunk and regret it. | |
| May 6, 2017 at 20:24 | history | asked | MissMonicaE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |