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Posted by THE AUTHOR, April 11, 2012 at 03:38 am, in THEORY

Welcome dear reader, war, brutality and suffering, that’s where I left off so that’s where we find ourselves now.

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In my previous post I posited a proposition posing war as a proper display of brutality on a scale some could possibly find preposterous.

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This continuation of thought however I will passionately propagate on another day while promptly continuing on and insouciantly positing that war like many things in life has two sides to it, the aforementioned and that relating to personal struggle.

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To give an example let me demonstrate this theory using the real world as a lens where-through we may garner a better understanding that can be used for literary purposes.

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World War II, it is a war most people have extensively heard about and learned throughout their life, it is also one that has been documented to great extent.

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For those not aware, World War II was a war originating in Central Europe pitting throughout its duration two groups of powers against one another, the Axis powers and the Allies, in sweeping terms the war came about because of one reason, that being the suffering endured by the people of one nation.

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The nation in question was, as you very well might know dear reader, Germany.

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After World War I ended a peace treaty called the Treaty of Versailles was established among the then warring nations, in this treaty Germany was pinned as the main malefactor in World War I creating economic and political sanctions for the German people that lead to not only great humiliation, but also starvation, death and of course suffering.

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As French General Ferdinand Foch put it: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

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Of course as a militarily focused General, Foch did not say this as a form of reprimand for the treaty’s strictness, rather Foch advocated for even harsher sanctions.

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Whether the General was right or not in thinking that a stricter treaty would have staved off future war efforts by the Germans is not something for me to say.

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However, regardless of the opinions surrounding the treaty, war did break out.

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If we were to forget for but a moment the atrocities committed during this war and looked at it as nothing more than a story, then I think that we can garner some fundamental truths that could effectively be used when writing fictitious stories.

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The main focus will of course be on war as a tool to overcome some suffering, in this case reality made for a wonderful example as I have already mentioned this great suffering.

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Starvation and death are not things to be joked about, but they were the conditions that the German people found themselves in after the first World War, it is thus not all too surprising that given their weakened state a charismatic man promising them redemption and a way out could make the people dance in the palm of his hand.

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Of course, because this is the internet Godwin's law applies, luckily for you and I dear reader I will not talk about the Nazis as their relevance is off limited importance right now.

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Instead, I want to focus on the people’s suffering.

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However sadistic that may make me sound.

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Anyway, unlike in a conventional story wherein a protagonist is the focus of suffering, usually in the wider context of a bad situation, we will purely focus on the people as a whole in this case.

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In this regard I should probably correct my earlier self dear reader, what I have been referring to as Germany would probably better fit a different term, sadly because the world is such a woefully complicated place the then unified regions of modern Germany had a variety of names associated with it depending on one’s political affiliation.

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For the sake of clarity I’ll call it what it would later come to be known as, which is the Weimar Republic.

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Anyway the people of the Weimar Republic had a lot of issues to face, they were told to pay close to half a trillion in today's dollars (generously rounding up) in wartime reparations while simultaneously struggling with an unstable government where political assassinations became the norm.

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It doesn’t just stop there though dear reader, when the Germans became unable to pay their bills on time foreign nations came knocking, unfortunate events alongside questionable governmental decisions eventually led the republic's currency the German Mark to hyper-inflate.

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It became so bad that what started as a hundred or so German marks to one US dollar turned into trillions of marks per dollar in a period of 3 years starting from 1920.

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Unfortunately for the Germans misery loves its company so it didn’t just end with hyperinflation, over the course of the next 10 years over a fourth of the labor force grew to become unemployed.

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It is also important to remember that this was all happening during a global period of downturn, with the start and the end of the 20’ beginning with a depression for many nations. The latter of which we now call The Great Depression.

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All in all, it wasn’t such a good time for most people, especially not the Germans.

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So I hope that it doesn’t come as a surprise when you hear who was chosen as Chancellor after more than a decade of misery.

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Surprise, surprise, it was Adolf Hitler.

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I think from there on most people have it down, but I’ll quickly go over it to finish the story off dear reader.

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Already existing resentment towards foreign nations and the Jews was capitalized on and was turned into hatred. Promises were made to rebuild the now German Reich, factories were build that provided people jobs, most of which were necessary for the future wartime effort.

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One invasion later and a few back and forth talks, and eventually World War 2 was started.

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The war itself took the lives of more than 50 million people, more than half being civilians, with the majority of casualties being Russian or Chinese.

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The aftermath probably claimed an additional 10-20 million lives.

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Germany itself lost a twelfth of its population and was later split in twain after the war, with the East side getting occupied by the Soviets and the West by the remaining Allies.

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That little history lesson aside, what was the point of it all you might ask yourself dear reader, well I just wanted to put on display why this war was instigated in the first place.

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Misery can do terrible things reader, to an individual and to a whole nation.

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That is why I think a war works well as a setting to overcome this misery, and why misery is often an essential component to display.

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Regardless of the deception necessary to get a group to commit to a war, it is likely always with a sense of victory or defeat bound to it.

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“If we win, the bad things will go away,” it may seem simplistic, but for those down in the dumps it’s hard to resist sweet temptation.

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The same logic can be applied to narcotics and those with certain habituations.

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Or maybe not.

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Anyway, with all that aside, you may still have questions dear reader, but I don’t feel cable right now.

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Wouldn’t want to cause another mayfly incident.