The Appeal of Evil — Amazon’s Colossal Misunderstanding of “The Man in the High Castle”
I recently rewatched some parts of Amazon’s TV show “The Man in the High Castle” (2015–2019), a “TV adaptation” of Philip K Dick’s 1962 book of the same title. I rewatched some episodes not because I enjoyed the series at the time (I did certainly not) but because there was something I felt deeply uneasy about I could not express.
This is neither a TV series review nor a review of a failed adaption as such, as this would be pointless: The TV show and Dick’s book share little in plot, other than some characters (taken out of context) and a general premise. The show (especially its nonsensical last season) has widely been ridiculed and I have little to add to that.
This is about how a TV series took a book and switched the perspective of the story in a specific way that led them to both-siding on a colossal scale.
It’s not science fiction — not even alternative history
Phillip K Dick’s book “The Man in the High Castle” is not science fiction and in fact, it does not play in “the future” but in the year the book was written. While often described as “alternate history”, it is also not so much about creating a believable historic timeline but about how we tend to perceive history itself as a timeline with a certain “direction”.
Philip K Dick chose the Nazi takeover of America as his alternative timeline because in the year of writing the second world war and the threat of fascism was still fresh in the mind of the readers, something he and his readers had experienced themselves.
Perspective
There is that one aspects that — in my view — makes the book such a great achivement: There are no heroes who shape history in Dick’s book. What all the main characters of the book have in common is that they are not people who yield influence or power, and the story is being told from their perspective.
What all the main characters of the book have in common is that they are not people who yield influence or power
Robert Childan, the opportunist, whose racism and anti-semitism changes as it fits his relationship with those in power. Frank Frink, who — as a Jew — is forced to live under a faked identity to survive. Juliana, who tries to find a place in life. Tagomi, while nominally a powerful Japanese official sees himself rather as a cog in a giant machinery. And Alfred Wegener — the Nazi defector — who could change the fate of the world but believes he is failing.
The stories of the book characters are arbitrarily connected, and they cross paths only briefly. In the end, it is the realization of this arbitrariness — the realization that history consists of a series of arbitrary looking decisions (as symbolized by the fictional author’s admission that he used the I Ching to write his book) — is what Juliana experiences as liberating: The rejection of the idea of destiny. That alone does not change the oppression they experience, does not change the world, but leaves the reader empowered.
The TV show, on the other hand, presents us a stereotypical grand story full of conspiracies, political plotting and historic world changing events, like The West Wing but with Nazis.
The idea of resistance
Secondly, there is — of course — no “resistance” in the book, for the simple reason that the characters of the book simply can’t imagine such a thing could exist. Even Juliana, the most self-determined character in the book kills a Nazi — who tries to abuse her for his assassination plans — out of her personal motivation to survive rather than for some calculated political aim.
Indeed, the Nazis in the book are hardly present at all: There are no grandiose descriptions of their architecture or achievements. Even Frank Frink, while living under the constant threat of death thinks of them of a joke while listening to their bombastic propaganda phantasy about colonizing other planets on the radio. The few Nazis who appear in the book are insecure and cynical, “banal”, if you want to use Hannah Arendt’s terminology. Wegener describes their ideology as a mental illness and Tagomi is simply disgusted by their lack of culture (referring to them as “thugs” more than once).
The Nazis of the novel are the evil background noise: Always present in the thoughts of the main characters but not directly interacting with them. The stereotypical Nazi in uniform appears only on a handful of pages in the book, and then almost as caricature. The book is a snapshot, no grand story arc, taking place within a few days around the death of Marting Bormann who we never see (In the book, Hitler has passed into insignificance long before).
Falling for fascist phantasies
And here we have the striking difference in the the show: Not only dedicates the TV Series equal screen time to resistance and oppressors, we are shown the Nazi’s family lives, we have to follow the adventures of the “good” — or at least morally torn — Nazi Joe Black, see them torturing each other. Are we seriously supposed to root for John Smith when he kills Himmler, takes over power from the “really bad ones” and prevents nuclear war? Is that supposed to be a “good people on both sides”-style message?
we are experiencing the story on TV from the perspective of the powerful, in a complete reversal of the book
In addition the show indulges in panoramic shots of bombastic fascist architecture, an apparently well organised and efficiently operating oppressive regime, and cultured fascists in well fitting uniforms.
The TV show makes John Smith, the American Nazi, arguably the main character of the show: Hence we are experiencing the story from the perspective of the powerful, in a complete reversal of the book. At some point Amazon manages to present Hitler himself as “the reasonable” one, even somewhat of an evil genius, while the fanatics and plotters are gearing up for all out world war. Rarely has a TV show left me so speechless.
End of story
Meanwhile — important and consistent with the snapshot nature of the story — the fate of all characters in the book is left open. We do not know what becomes of them. Because for the story it does not matter.
The ending of the show is however as symptomatic as it is unforgivable: John Smith’s wife discovers that her husband, literally the leader of the national-socialists in America, was actually a bad man. I kid you not. Apparently still not enough, she is dying in Smith’s arms, who then — apparently devastated — kills himself.
Is empathy with Nazis really what the story needed? The show’s repeated insistence on humanizing fascists makes even less sense in the over-the-top science fiction setting. Philip K Dick told the story from the perspective of the powerless, because those and their role mattered to him.
The element of arbitrariness in the book becomes a stereotypical story on TV where strong-willed people decide history, again, on both sides. What a colossal misunderstanding.
Or maybe Amazon just believed that Nazis in uniform sell and made a marketing decision. I do not know. Amazon’s TV show failed for many reasons, but at the core the switch in perspective displayed a startling naivety in handling such a sensitive topic, and falls for the aesthetic appeal of fascism.
