Line #15 YMMV/TheManInTheHighCastle


1	!!The Novel:
2	* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Trading cards themed around WarIsHell might seem like something Philip K. Dick invented for the book, but they were a real thing, and yes, they came with gum as described. The [[https://www.deanscards.com/c/503/1938-Gum-Inc-Horrors-of-War 1938 "Horrors of War" set]] the characters discuss is about as graphic, if not more than, what's mentioned: each card contains full-color, graphic depictions of various scenes from the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, the Ethiopian War, and the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, such as "Big Shells Kill Madrid Children at Play", "Nanking's Week of Horror", and, yes, "U.S.S. Panay Sinks as Crew Abandons Ship" (which is actually one of multiple cards depicting the sinking of the USS ''Panay''), and the descriptions on the back are very explicit about the carnage inflicted on both military and civilians alike. It's no surprise the motto of the series was "To know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE".
3	* CultClassic: In the alternate history fandom. It's now reached mainstream appeal with the Live Action adaptation on Amazon TV.
4	* NauseaFuel: The Nazi doctors inventing new uses for dead bodies, such as using the joint of the big toe as a mechanism for a lighter.
5
6	!!The Television Series:
7	* AmericansHateTingle: Eastern European countries, especially Russia, are not entirely fond of this series due to feeling that the United States' importance as a safeguard against the Nazis is overstated at the expense of the USSR which in the novel gets steamrolled. While the Soviet participation in the war did depend heavily on American economic aid, the Eastern Front was the most significant obstacle in the way of the Nazis which ended up exhausting their war effort and crushing their morale before the Western Allies pushed their offensive.
8	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Both Julianna and Frank, the main protagonists of the story, suffer this, especially once Season 2 rolls around.
9	** Frank's personal resistance storyline in Season 2, where he turns into a whiny jerkass to Ed and Childan for no apparent reason, while also immediately cheating on Julianna with the Japanese resistance woman soured him for a lot of people, leading to his 'winning' polls for the least popular character in the show. In a show with multiple genocidal murdering fascists in the main cast.
10	** Julianna gets comparisons with Skylar from ''Series/BreakingBad'', being accused of idiotic, aggravating behavior and making stupid choices, helping the Nazis and Japanese, while continually betraying everyone who trusts her, and contradictory words and actions, which only justify the Resistance turning against her for [[spoiler:Karen's death]].
11	* CharacterRerailment: [[spoiler:After seemingly undergoing AdaptationalHeroism in the first two seasons, Joe Blake does a FaceHeelTurn in the third and becomes a full-blown Nazi antagonist [[TruerToTheText just like in the original book, right down to adapting the last name Cinnadella that he carried in the source material]].]]
12	* CompleteMonster: Several characters manage to stand out in their abominableness even in this dystopian, Axis-dominated AlternateHistory world:
13	** SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich is the second-in-command of the [[StateSec SS]], the organization charged with enforcing the UsefulNotes/{{Nazi German\|y}} ideology of a MasterRace. Organizing [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the total genocide of the Jewish people]] in both Europe and Nazi-occupied America, Heydrich also gleefully enslaved the entire continent of Africa, referring to [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame the natives he hunted down]] as "tribal subhumanoids". Wishing to exterminate the Japanese whom even UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler wished to keep an alliance with, so the Nazis could rule the world alone, Heydrich orchestrates the public assassination of the visiting Japanese Crown Prince to attempt to provoke a declaration of war. When a remorseful Nazi spy passes on nuclear technology to his Japanese contacts in an attempt to preserve peace, Heydrich hunts him down, only keeping him alive because of his access to Hitler, and threatens to kill his family if he does not assist Heydrich in his assassination of the Fuehrer. Wishing to kill the Nazi leader to [[TheStarscream take over the Third Reich]] and destroy the Japanese Home Islands, when his scheme is discovered by John Smith, Heydrich invites him to a hunting party to arrange an "accidental death" for him to keep his scheme under wraps. Wearing his title as "The Man with the Iron Heart" with pride, Heydrich is a remorseless man feared and despised by even fellow Nazis.
14	** Reichsführer-SS UsefulNotes/HeinrichHimmler, Heydrich's superior, was one of the chief architects behind the Holocaust and Germany's wars of aggression. While part of the recently-named Reich Chancellor Martin Heusmann's war council, Himmler is dismissive of the tens of millions of casualties that would result from the nuclear war of annihilation the Nazis are planning against Japan. Himmler subsequently arrests Heusmann after learning of his murder of Adolf Hitler and to assume power. As Fuehrer, Himmler [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten forces Joe Blake]] to kill his father to prove his loyalty to the Reich, and has his [[SuperBreedingProgram Lebensborn elite soldiers]] sent out to assassinate ex-Nazi defectors and Japanese politicians, overseeing these soldiers completing their training by killing "subhuman" targets. Himmler has also ordered the construction of an InterdimensionalTravelDevice to conquer neighboring dimensions and authorizes [[PlayingWithSyringes torturous experiments]] on human test subjects, and finally initiates mass riots across the Greater Nazi Reich after having former American monuments destroyed as part of "Jahr Null". Fully convinced of the genocidal and totalitarian policies of National Socialism, Himmler is one of the worst Nazis depicted in the show.
15	* DracoInLeatherPants:
16	** Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith, due to being a SharpDressedMan played by Rufus Sewell and his sympathetic traits like his love for his family above everything else, and his incredibly cool reaction to being ambushed in Season 1. Also the fact that he was a U.S. military officer before Axis victory and indications of him being a PunchClockVillain whose hand was forced by the Nazis winning the war also further helps.
17	** [[spoiler:Joe Blake in Season 3 following his FaceHeelTurn can count too, after the viewers got to know him in the previous seasons before he became BrainwashedAndCrazy after getting tortured with his death being an AlasPoorVillain moment for him.]]
18	* EsotericHappyEnding: The series ends with [[spoiler:the Japanese having withdrawn from the Pacific States, the Nazi leadership in Berlin replaced with fresh blood, John Smith dead at the hands of the resistance and his subordinate ripping off his Nazi insignia when he's apprised of this, and the ''Nebenswelt'' portal being permanently opened and masses of people from other worlds arriving in the Axis world. While Smith's soul was so far gone by this point that the world would be better off without him, it's already pointed out that even if he died, [[EvilPowerVacuum he would just be replaced with someone else]]. The US has been ruled by the Nazi regime for twenty years, with all the indoctrination and fanaticism of rank and file soldiers and citizens that implies. His replacement would have to contend with hardliners and rogue units in the American Reich attempting to depose him, not to mention the Reichsfuhrer in Berlin might just decide that his deal with Smith is null and void with the latter's death. It's a recipe for a civil war. Japan is also still lording over a massive empire in the Pacific and East Asia, with the withdrawal from North America giving them renewed resources to keep those territories under their thumb]].
19	* EvilIsCool: Throughout the series, even though they are servants to notorious brutal regimes in history, both Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith and Chief Inspector Kido are very effective in their jobs and at the same time in-depth characters for viewers to relate to.
20	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
21	** When Tagomi travels to the alternate world, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he goes through his cabinet and finds a box of Twinkies. And then tries to eat one with chopsticks.
22	** When Smith is watching all of Hitler's film of alternate universes to find anything relevant, he comes across a filmstrip which documents how a chicken farm is run. (Note that up until this point, everything has been newsreels or military footage of things like the first H-Bomb test or the dimensional travel experiments.) Smith has a blase look while watching it, giving us the impression that he's had to watch a lot of irrelevant crap while trying to find things that are important. [[spoiler:The strip actually ends up being important, because the owners of the farm are revealed to be Abendsen and his wife. Smith uses this information to catch them.]]
23	* GeniusBonus:
24	** In "Revelations", it is shown that the secret "Baynes" tries to get over [[spoiler:are nuclear fission formulas]].
25	** In season 3, Smith blackmails Hoover with unspecified dirt. In real life, Hoover was widely rumored to be a closeted homosexual. The same season shows that even high-ranking Nazi officials are not immune to punishment for homosexual activity.
26	** The Smiths have 3 children, while the Alt-Smiths have only one child. Since Nazi propaganda heavily promoted large families, this is another indication just how much the Smiths have succumbed to their ideology.
27	* HarsherInHindsight:
28	** The sight of the US Capitol Building being destroyed by an invasion of Neo-Nazis is much more disquieting after the 2021 attempted coup at the Capitol.
29	* HilariousInHindsight:
30	** The way the Japanese fawn over the tritest American kitsch in the book is funnier now, after the rise of anime and manga fandom in the United States, some members of which do the exact same thing to Japanese culture.
31	** Tagomi's interest in learning about the novel ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'' clearly is meant for intentional humor, as there is a [[UsefulNotes/LolitaFashion "Lolita fashion" subculture]], and also a notorious underground "Lolita-fetish", in contemporary Japan.
32	** During the same time that Bella Heathcote was doing the role of Nicole Dormer, she was cast as [[Film/ProfessorMarstonAndTheWonderWomen Olive Byrne]], one of the muses that inspired the creation of an [[Franchise/WonderWoman iconic character]] whose early adventures included battling against the Nazis.
33	** Brennan Brown, who played Robert Childan, would play a US Navy Intelligence analyst who contributes critical details that led to developing the strategy that would defeat the Japanese at the [[Film/Midway2019 Battle of Midway]].
34	* MisaimedFandom: The show is particularly popular among real-life white nationalists and Neo-Nazis, mainly for its portrayal of a relatively stable and functioning German-run United States, as well as a few sympathetic characters among the Nazi ranks.
35	* MoralEventHorizon:
36	** In Season 3, [[spoiler:Joe Blake crosses this by killing his own father then threatening Julianna to comply at gunpoint, to the point that when Julianna kills him in self-defense, Joe qualified as an AssholeVictim after losing all sympathy]].
37	** Smith finally crosses this line in Season 4 [[spoiler:when he finally decides on his plan to essentially kidnap Alt-Thomas Smith to "replace" the one he lost while simultaneously approving the American Reich's invasion of the West Coast, with all the plans of concentration camps, genocide, and cultural destruction included. It finally dawns on Helen how irredeemable her husband has become when she finally gets sees the extremely-detailed invasion plans for herself]].
38	* {{Narm}}:
39	** The Marshall is, in-universe, a stone-cold killer who is lethally dangerous for anyone to cross. The problem is, he's played by unimposing, pinched-faced Creator/BurnGorman doing his best attempt at a Creator/ClintEastwood impression. It's a little hard to believe that the Marshall doesn't constantly have to shoot people for laughing at his attempts to be intimidating.
40	** As Abendsen explains how he figured out how to stop the nuclear war to Julianna, his voice is overcome with emotion. Unfortunately, he ends up sounding like [[WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill Bill Dauterive]].
41	** Adolf Eichmann's accent in the penultimate episode. With so many convincing accents in the series, Eichmann sounds like a bad impression of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Rainer Wolfcastle]].
42	* OneSceneWonder:
43	** The cop Joe meets while driving the truck was quite memorable for showing how Nazi policies have warped the average American: the cop [[PunchClockVillain is genuinely friendly]]… [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror while seeing nothing wrong with the mentally and physically disabled being killed and cremated, talking blissfully about the ashes falling around him like it was weather]].
44	** Jim [=McCarthy=], Ed's grandfather. He appears in only two scenes (one of which consists entirely of him shooting insults at Frank over the phone), but manages to make a deeper impact than some of the main cast.
45	* OvershadowedByControversy: Most non-fans only remember the show for a P.R. mishap wherein ''an entire New York City Subway car was covered with Nazi and Imperial Japanese imagery'' as part of its advertising campaign.
46	* SpiritualSuccessor: To the revived ''[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Battlestar Galactica]]'' series. Three actors from ''Galactica'' play Resistance members in ''High Castle'', and unexplained fantasy metaphysics along with the presence of seemingly omniscient advisers in the midst of science fiction are important details in both series. Also, current politics and events and history in today's contemporary world are playing out in -- or are being read into -- the themes and plots in both series.
47	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: The second season can be riddled with this, as the LaResistance are shown to be corrupt and even act as part of the BigBadEnsemble with the Axis Powers mostly towards Julianna, who undergoes hell by being [[spoiler:hunted by the resistance for both Joe Blake's escape and Karen's death, which was actually [[NeverMyFault caused by Gary]], who was the one who issued the manhunt on Julianna]].
48

Context YMMV / TheManInTheHighCastle