Countryhumans One-shots!

(Not a chapter) - Apology of Third Reich

Apology: something that is said or written to defend something that other people criticize

Title inspired by Plato's "Apology of Socrates"

Let's get this clear. I am not one to start a fight. In fact, I seldom join discussions because I don't particularly rely on my oratory skills or simply because I don't understand/care about the matter.

Now, this is an issue people in this fandom widely discuss about and I want to give my personal opinion as well. I think I am able to do so.

I had previously done this on Deviantart, but I feel like I want to spread my words more.

I had a discussion with a user on DA about a drawing picturing Third Reich. Since this person was criticizing the drawing and the user who drew it I decided to write my apology of Third Reich.

For some reasons I can't paste the link, so I'll just paste my comment instead

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Comment starts here:

I'd like to start a debate now that we are talking.
First of all, I wish you won't get mad about me trying to give a reason for Third Reich to be acceptable, I am not intentioned to upset you on purpose and I'd like to discuss like mature people.

I want to make clear that Third Reich as a countryhuman is completely different from the real Reich, as it was created by fans and given his own personality. It's the way the character is depicted that makes fans like him. If he was just a "nazi" nobody would have liked him. He's given a personality, he is based off a country, it's not the country itself. Black humor is a thing, we all know that, and people like it. Third Reich is given a personality that reflects the fan's preferences (you sure know USSR/Third Reich right? Well... Why should a country that sent homosexual people to concentration camps and even made experiments on them be shipped in a homo ship?). The distinctive trait of Reich is that he's the villain of the situation. As human beings we are naturally drawn to things that might be bad/dangerous, including characters like this.
Otherwise, villains wouldn't have a fanbase.
Nobody complains about the murders Loki has committed in Avengers, simply because they were not real.
No one really died.
To mention an old DA comment I found many years ago,

"1) xxxx is fictional. So he poses no real threat.

2) He's mysterious because he kills people. It's difficult for us to understand why someone would harm others, but human curiosity drives us to want to explain and understand it. That contributes to the attraction.

3) People tend to like villains. There's a bit of a villain in us all, and fictional "bad guys/girls" allow us to live out that dark side a little bit, but in a safe way. We even empathize with them, even when we can't admit that fact.

4)Although our primary sympathy lies with the innocent victims, many people cannot help but pity and want to excuse/comfort the villains. We place our own feelings on them and imagine that they must be suffering too. This is especially easy when a character is so shrouded in mystery; we tend to project our own personality onto them without realizing it. This is true with heroes and villains."

Third Reich itself has really killed people, and is hated by everyone in the world.
Third Reich as a Countryhuman is a fictional depiction of something that has existed, but hasn't really killed anyone himself. How can a drawing kill?
No countryhuman has sent jews to concentration camps.
No countryhuman is responsible for the terrible things that Hitler did.
It's just a character. It does not harm anyone.
It's not even propaganda, because if we had to consider him propaganda then what should we say about the other countryhumans?
No one in history has ever been good.
But the hate is all on Third Reich because its actions are those that made it into media.
I have never seen somebody complain about Britain (Countryhuman) even though British Empire was a thing, no comments about Imperial Japan's unit 731, Spain's conquistadores or anything else.
Why?
Because they're either forgotten, or people understood that they're simply telling history.
It's like a children's history book made by edgy teens.
Third Reich himself represents history, but it stops right there. The character itself does not harm.
It's just a modified teen-like version of a history book, made more appealing by giving him features that have nothing in common to the real nazi party.

If we had to take down this character, then we should do it for every movie about nazis, even take down the whole countryhuman fandom, as if he's unethical, neither are the others."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Of course, want said before doesn't appeal to those who are not fans of Third Reich. I like the character, it's my favorite in the fandom, but this doesn't make me a nazi. 

Issue number two:

Many people don't draw the swastika when drawing Third Reich because it's seen as offensive.

Swastika was a symbol far before nazism was a thing. I've seen swastikas in ancient tombstones when I was a kid and went to school trips. Teaches had to explain why there were swastikas in the tombstones. 

Blame Hitler for making swastika the most hated symbol in the universe.

Also, if you see swastika as offensive you shall find the Hammer and Sickle offensive as well. 

Nazi killed people? Yes, they surely did.

But let me post the beginning of a review by Timothy Snyder:

"In the second half of the twentieth century, Americans were taught to see both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as the greatest of evils. Hitler was worse, because his regime propagated the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust, the attempt to eradicate an entire people on racial grounds. Yet Stalin was also worse, because his regime killed far, far more people, tens of millions it was often claimed, in the endless wastes of the Gulag."

You still have no problems to draw USSR with the Hammer and Sickle symbol, though. 

Let this stop being an issue.

If you have any comments, if you agree or don't I'll be more than happy to start a conversation with you. I previously said I don't mean to be offensive, I'm just showing my point of view.

Best wishes

See you soon on another chapter :)