The Winds Of War And War And Remembrance - Television Tropes & Idioms

The beginning of the end of War lies in Remembrance

Herman Wouk

This is a historical epic of World War II set in two volumes, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk. It follows the Henry family and their friends around the world during the war. In effect, it is a "sight-seeing" tour, in which we are shown the war from as many perspectives as the author can manage. It has been called a World War II version of War and Peace and both volumes were latter made into a TV miniseries .

Tropes include:

Absent-Minded Professor : Aaron Jastrow. While he could be pardoned for not believing rumors of the Holocaust, he could at least have figured out that being in Europe during a major war might not be be prudent.
Ace Pilot: Warren Henry is a pilot though not technically an ace.
America Wins The War: Not quite. But most of the main characters are Americans.
Ambadassador : Victor, in the first volume. In much of the second too.
Badass Bureaucrat: Victor acts as this much of the time.
Badass Family: The Henrys.
Badass Grandpa: Victor. Literally as he is in fact a grandpa through much of the series.
Big Bad : Adolf Hitler, obviously.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Byron Henry is obviously brilliant, but introduced as directionless failed-art student.
The Captain: Victor Henry
- Also The Good Captain
The Chessmaster: Roosevelt, according to von Roon, who credits him with a fiendish plan against Germany. Von Roon of course, thinks that when Germans do such things it is brilliant statesmanship.
Cultured Warrior: Byron Henry is studying fine arts before the war. Possibly a subversion as he is a rather lazy and inefficient student.
Doorstopper
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Slote's death only gets a passing mention, after he goes through a lot of Character Development. And its stated that it was completely pointless from a military standpoint.
Earth Is A Battlefield
Easily Forgiven: Rhoda, Victor's wife is rather charitably treated by poor Victor when she commits adultery. Especially as Victor managed to shrug off similar temptation.
- Maybe that was the reason. He was thinking, "There but for the grace of God".
- He finally does end up divorcing her. So maybe it was first played straight and then subverted.
Empire With A Dark Secret : The series contains graphic scenes of the Holocaust.
The Epic
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : Inverted. In this one good, excruciatingly, cannot comprehend evil. Truth in Television.
Father Neptune: Victor Henry, the father and a naval officer.
Final Battle: Leyte Gulf
Forces With Firepower: Any belligerent.
Foregone Conclusion : Yes, the Allies won World War II . No, seriously.
Glamorous Wartime Singer: Madeline Henry
Heroic Sociopath: Byron's submarine captain, Aster. Later Aster dies in a Heroic Sacrifice.
Historical Domain Character : Many
Humble Hero: Victor is perfectly willing to let others get the glory as long as the war is won..
Insufferable Genius: Von Roon, a German staff officer whom Victor translates years after the war. He is exasperatingly full of Moral Myopia(and even Moral Myopia about other people's Moral Myopia), contemptuous of his enemies, and determined to show in a very calm and professional manner how it was all everyone elses fault. After reading him, you dislike him not just as a Nazi, but as a person. That, of course, was the author's intention.
- Victor in the "commentary" sardonically notes that he has a habit of "Blaming other countries for getting invaded by the Germans."
  - This Troper has read from some German staffies from the period that actually do sound a bit like von Roon.
  - The author claimed the same thing.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Slote, Natalie's former boyfriend helps her to get married to Byron, and even gives them his luxurious hotel room to spend their wedding night in, even though he still loves Natalie.
I Will Find You: Byron searches for Natalie in Europe.
I Am Spartacus: Leslie Slote, a normally timid diplomatic flunky is travelling with some neutral diplomats through German territory. When an SS officer demands to separate Jews from the group, Slote, with a gloriously imperious display appeals to international good manners, and then announces that either all of the group would be treated as Jews, or none.
La Résistance : Natalie becomes a member of this.
Like You Would Really Do It: Repeatedly hammered home about Nazis.
Little Hero, Big War
Loads and Loads of Characters: Including, Victor Henry, his wife Rhoda, his sons Warren and Byron, and his daughter Madeline. Also including a number of other important characters from an another family, as well as many a Historical Domain Character of the time.
Lovable Coward: Slote, though he eventually gets over his cowardice.
Married to the Job: Victor Henry.
Matzo Fever: Natalie Jastrow, the love interest(and wife) of Byron Henry.
May-December Romance: Between Victor and Pamela Tudsbury.
Meaningful Name: The head of a naval family named Victor?
- The superstitious might wonder about giving a naval officer that name. It's kind of Tempting Fate.
  - Though of course, not only did he end up as the victor he got to rub it in by writing a translation of the vanquished point of view and adding in his snarky commentaries.
  - Byron, the Cultured Warrior(sort of) of the Henry family is named after a famous poet.
Most Writers Are Writers: Natalie's uncle is a famous writer, and there are intellectual references throughout the work.
My Sister Is Off Limits : And Byron actually smashes the false teeth of one of Madeline's boyfriends.
Nakama
Obligatory War Crime Scene: Subverted. On a submarine patrol Byron's captain sets up a shot on a ship with a red cross insignia. Byron asks permission to stand aside from this and take notes to report it to authority. Then the captain fires and the ship explodes massively, being an ammunition ship disguised as a hospital ship. It is not made clear how Byron's captain guessed or if he was just incredibly lucky.
Overt Operative: Victor spends the first part as a Naval Attache(polite term for an embassy's official spy)in Berlin. Justified in that the right to keep an "in-house" spy as long as he is not to obnoxious about it is common diplomatic custom. However he does little more exciting then going to VIP entertainments and taking notes. In so doing, he did manage to predict the German-Russian alliance.
The Patriarch :Victor Henry
Patriotic Fervor: Pretty much shown by everyone and true to period.
Proud Warrior Race: Von Roon thinks only Germans are true warriors. When Germans lose it was "unfair".
Real Men Love Jesus: Victor is a good churchgoer. More in a "Respectable '40's American" sense then in a "fanatic" sense, but a very devoted Christian nontheless.
The Stoic: Victor. Kind of verges into Stoic Woobie at times.
These Hands Have Killed : Byron, in order to have an excuse to visit his wife and son in Europe gets a job inspecting captured German submarines. A Zionist agent who had protected his family is shocked at the idea of him working with former German submariners. Byron says that they were just professional naval officers. Whereupon the agent says "They're murderers". And Byron said, "So am I."
Those Wacky Nazis
Took a Level in Badass : Byron evolves from a rather lazy character into a submarine ace.
- Leslie Slote originally appears as a diplomat, who's cowardly and aware of it. After he finds evidence about the Holocaust, and can't do anything to help the Jews by diplomatic means, he eventually resigns and becomes a member of a paratrooper squad.
Unreliable Narrator : Von Roon. Fairly obvious given his former employers.
Villainous Breakdown: In the film adaptation of War and Rememberance, Hitler has an exceptionally epic one when informed that Steiner could not muster reinforcements to come to Berlin's aid.
- even Downfall Hitler thinks he's crazy.
War Is Hell / War Is Glorious: Yes the book manages both. Not as uncommon as it sounds.
War Time Soap : The books are rather soapy in many ways.
We Have Become Complacent
Worthy Opponent: While America is still neutral Victor comments to a German naval officer that he seemed so familiar a specimen of a naval officer that Victor might have met him in the last war. The German officer wryly replies "Maybe we did."
Ye Goode Olde Days: Nostalgia for World War II? Come on. Yet we all know it exists and the book runs on it. To the point of having the cover decorated by a cluster of forties style family photos.
- However, despite that it is never hidden that these were a nasty time. After all the author is a Jew and so are several of the characters, and Jews did not have it so well then.
What an Idiot: Aaron and Natalie continually refuse to leave Europe. Despite the fact that Byron even managed to find a way to track them down in the middle of the war.
World War II