Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Saga of Tanya the Evil II
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Otohiko
 Posts: 45 |
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As someone with an academic background in history of international relations and military history, I'm having a great time with this season of Tanya. It gets into some pretty heady ideas (in a simplified way), and even the long buildup to the Empire (and everyone else) getting stuck in a war that is objectively bad for everyone is really paying off now... especially with contemporary examples of stupid wars dragged out by sunk cost fallacies.
It's no secret that while this series is about Germany, it's even more a commentary on Japan's wartime experience - and I think it's really interesting how being indirectly about it allows for a pretty pointed and nuanced exploration of the difference between battlefield bravery and moral cowardice. There are a lot of characters here who are intelligent, objectively brave, and if not well-meaning then at least cognizant of their own self-interest - and yet who make or go along with morally bankrupt and completely stupid decisions because, deep down, they're cowards with no real moral core. That's a heavy accusation - and one that is hard to make in Japanese media about history directly, so it's interesting to see it explored indirectly here. Doubly so because on the other side we have the literal Mary Sue - and for all her obsessions with morality in an increasingly messy war, she is also a complete idiot. Really looking forward to where it goes next! |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 3058 |
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I believe this episode's real message is that an autonomous military can be the enemy of peace due to it's susceptibility to the sunk-cost fallacy, which is why the US founders had the military commanded by a civilian. A military should be directed by someone more sensitive to real human costs to "call it" an end to the conflict and move to peaceful conclusion at the appropriate point, taking everyone's cost into account and hopefully provide some equity rather than blindly fighting to attain "victory or death". What "floored" me this episode is that Not-Italy proposed what should have been the ultimate reward to stop fighting "no pay-back and you keep what you have" only for von Rudersdorf to "choose violence" as the path to peace. Makes one wonder if Sanzai-X has been whispering in his ear... 
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Otohiko
Posts: 45 |
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That's a good point. I'm honestly curious what we know about the Empire's political structure - previous episodes imply that the (civilian) government has ultimate say over decisions, yet in this one we definitely saw what seemed like von Rudersdorf make the call. In the past, though, he and the others were regularly complaining about being at the government's whims. Does he actually have the authority to do this, or was this also a blatant power grab on his part? Since he's loosely based on the historical Erich Ludendorff - who effectively took over all of real-world Germany's strategic decision-making roughly in the middle of WWI, but perhaps more infamously became a repeated authoritarian coup-plotter post-WWI - that does make me wonder. Historically, the high degree of military autonomy and increasing militarization of WWI Germany's politics (especially as the war went on) were a major issue - and even more so, it was a huge issue in pre-WWII Japan (and as I suggested, in many ways I think this story is critical commentary on Japan's world war legacy more so than Germany's). It feels like some of the changes here may have already happened off screen, but knowing more about the Empire's political system would probably help. Otherwise, I don't think von Rudersdorf's behaviour is hugely out of character here. He and Zettour have never really shown themselves as particularly concerned with casualties. They don't see eye to eye on a number of things, but I honestly don't regard either of them particularly well - they're both arch-militarists with a myopic view of strategy, and a willingness to blame anyone but themselves for what is turning into a very bad war for them. |
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Rooby VTuber
 Posts: 10 Location: Australia |
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Very happy to see this back again.
I hope we get another confrontation between Tanya & Mary. Tanya with the smiley face might be more scarier than being yelled at. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4887 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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that will highly be unlikely. especially once in the later volumes, spoiler[ tanya decides to fake her death and then defect to the US ] and speaking of mary, who here predicts that she might be the reincarnation of the man who pushed pre reincarnated tanya on to that train!? for while this theory has no credibility at this time , i would not put it past being X to do such a thing as a way too stick it to tanya! |
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