![]() ![]() 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. ![]()
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