History Fridge / TheHandmaidsTale

* [[KickTheSonOfABitch Your mileage may DEFINITELY vary on whether or not this is horror]], but the former Gilead will see the mother of all backlashes. The former Commanders, including Fred Waterford, are likely to be executed. Serena and the Aunts will most likely be unable to go in public for the rest of their lives. If their brand of Christianity isn't outright outlawed, those churches are going to be watched very closely.

** A simpler explanation is that the color scheme was laid out in the novel, which was published in the eighties, before the current Democratic and Republican color schemes were nearly so entrenched or universal. In most of the world, red represents the left, not the right: that's why it's the color of communism, for instance.

** A simpler explanation is that the color scheme was laid out in the novel, which was published in the eighties, before the current Democratic and Republican color schemes existed. In most of the world, red represents the left, not the right: that's why it's the color of communism, for instance.

* I viewed it as bad writing in Season 2 how Fred went from a somewhat complicated character in Season 1 to a one-dimensional monster and a plot device in Season 2. However, the Season 1 finale ended with his best friend being harshly punished for adultery, and only being saved from death because of the DoubleStandard of his position, compared to the woman he had an affair with. Fred himself has MANY hypocrisies that could probably lead to him losing more than just his left arm; Warren's amputation and the birth of his first child was a wake-up call that it was time to hide his sins. In Season 2 alone, his pregnant Handmaid started it off by refusing to stone said woman and escaped her position for 92 days, almost succeeding in getting out of Gilead. He became a [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask man wearing the mask of a Commander]] [[NiceJobFixingItVillain to avoid getting in trouble again]].

* [[KickTheSonOfABitch Your mileage may ' 'definitely' ' vary on whether or not this is horror]], but the former Gilead will see the mother of all backlashes. The former Commanders, including Fred Waterford, are likely to be executed. Serena and the Aunts will most likely be unable to go in public for the rest of their lives. If their brand of Christianity isn't outright outlawed, those churches are going to be watched very closely.

* One would assume that Gilead would reference the original inspirations for their Handmaids more often - Hagar, Bilhah, and Zilpah - but they seem to prefer the names of their mistresses: The Rachel and Leah Center, for instance. But then they also take away the names of the Handmaids themselves, so they probably wouldn't want to humanize these women's "role models" either.

*** They vaguely touch on this in Season 3. Gilead has "gone green" but not from any desire to save the environment, only to save ''themselves'' from the environment. They suspect that pollution might also be affecting the fertility rates and switched to renewables. It might not be too big a leap to think they did the same with farming - they didn't make an alliance with Greenpeace to seize power and end factory farming, just held a belief that [=GMOs=] might have affected fertility rates. Also doubles as an anti-intellectual, returning-to-the-good-old-days theme.

** We do, however, see that June is troubled by the situation - she is the first to bring up that Luke is married when they commence their affair, and later when Annie confronts her she does seem concerned that, when she and Luke started their affair, he and Annie weren't even separated. For that matter, militant feminism has a few solid lines in it about not screwing other women over. June had an affair with a married man because she wanted to. Not the most commendable behaviour, all right, but at the same time, it's a private misdemeanour, and definitely not something any government should ever involve itself with.

!! Fridge Brilliance

* In the series, there is no longer a (obvious) white supremacy. While Gilead residents of all classes are racially diverse, it is still not a multicultural society, since all cultural differences (such as religion and attire) have been wiped out. It is likely that this has been done to protest extremists of both wings regarding race: both the ultra-conservative super-strict churches where the only diversity allowed is race; as well as ultra-liberals who think that as long as something is not racist, it is not evil and thus should be tolerated. Not the first time the Handmaid's Tale protests extremist views of both wings (such as regarding porn)- so it makes perfect sense.

! Fridge Horror

*** They vaguely touch on this in Season 3. Gilead has "gone green" but not from any desire to save the environment, only to save ''themselves'' from the environment. They suspect that pollution might also be affecting the fertility rates and switched to renewables. It might not be too big a leap to think they did the same with farming - they didn't make an alliance with Greenpeace to seize power and end factory farming, just held a belief that GMOs might have affected fertility rates. Also doubles as an anti-intellectual, returning-to-the-good-old-days theme.

* Research has proven that babies often need skin to skin contact with their parents or caregivers in order to survive. The Putnams never saw Charlotte as anything more than a status symbol, and certainly never gave her hugs or cuddles even when she was fully clothed, let alone skin to skin, so it's not that surprising when she starts to wane. By contrast, when Janine undresses and cradles her daughter close, Charlotte starts to improve.

** This could go along with the idea they don't let women read the Bible so they don't realize their laws are just a QuoteMine blender. Yes, Bilhah and Zilpah being "handmaids" in our sense, may seem like they were trusted companions and confidants, but really they were slaves, and Hammurabi's Code dictated that if you couldn't get pregnant, you had your husband impregnate the slave and raise the child for your own. Hagar is likely never brought up because of the full story: Sarah was impatient that God wouldn't give her a child, so she had Abraham sleep with (i.e. rape) her handmaid, but grew jealous and ran the pregnant girl out of town, but she returned. After the baby was born, she ran the child and the mother into the desert to die, but Hagar only returned because an angel commanded it. And when Isaac was born, he and his teenaged brother, Ishmael, argued often. A Handmaid, if permitted to read, could bring this tale up as a reason for why the Handmaid system is flawed, which Gilead certainly wouldn't want.

* There's a very subtle hint that Commander Lawrence is a good guy as shortly after he's introduced, he has a small argument with his Martha who keeps making a mess due to her missing eye, and the Martha casually talks back to him, showing that despite being a Martha, she isn't afraid of the Commander as she freely argues back to him with no consequences.

** FridgeTearjerker, since Eden could've very well grown up among the Quiverfull movement or some similar Christian fundamentalist group that preaches that women are to be homemakers and [[BabyFactory Baby Factories]]. It's still heartbreaking.

** Eden is so scarily naï ve, and her mother has engrained into her that her only purpose is to care for the home, her husband, and to bear children. A fun reminder that she is only ''fifteen''.

* Everything with Nick and Eden. In present day America and other Western countries, it is possible for a fifteen-year-old teenager to genuinely consent to sex (although not, generally speaking, to consent to sex with someone Nick's age, given the power and experience disparity, which is why we have statutory rape laws). In this case, however, she's been brainwashed from a young age, likely can't read, was never given a chance to healthily develop her sexuality in age-appropriate ways, and doesn't realise a fifteen-year-old girl being thrown into a marriage with an unknown adult man is not a good thing; even if she has feelings of something being wrong, she's been taught to discard those feelings. Adult Nick genuinely does not want to have sex with a teenager but is literally facing the threat of horrible punishment or death if it gets out that he isn't. On top of all this, Eden is trying to make an actual marriage out of the situation, and Nick is more-or-less treating her like someone he's being forced to babysit. At first, he sort of humored her, then, he lost his temper, and now, he's trying his best to ignore her. What happened with Isaac shows she's a confused, largely ignorant, though, not unintelligent, teenager who could do something that hurts many people, including possibly herself, soon, and it won't truly be her fault or Nick's, but still. Horrible situation.

* At first all that talk about "Colonies" so severely contaminated or irradiated that you die with a short time of being shipped to the clean-up gulags seemed rather weird, considering that just 5 years before, life in the U.S. appeared to have looked almost exactly the same as it does in the real world. And there's no talk about Gilead having provoked a nuclear / chemical war with the rest of the world, or anything like that. (On the contrary, they seem desperate to maintain good relations to other countries and even Canada is apparently not worried about getting invaded next.) But in a full-blown civil war in the U.S. it's quite likely that at least some of the country's about 100 nuclear plants would go into meltdown,[[note]] Not so much the reactors themselves, which can be shut down quite quickly, but the pools where the spent fuel rods have to be kept under water for 5 years to cool down. Those pools need continually running pumps so the water doesn't boil off and the stored mass of still-hot fuel rods melts and goes critical, which is what happened in Fukushima after the pumps were damaged by the tsunami. Nuclear plants in the U.S. normally only have enough diesel on site to keep the pumps running for a couple of days in case the electrical grid has a blackout. The electrical infrastructure of the U.S. is already in pretty bad shape – now imagine what happens if the people maintaining stuff get driven away by fighting militias, or if some theocratic luddite terrorists clueless about how things actually work try to sabotage a nuclear plant or detonate an EMP bomb close enough to wipe out their computers…[[/note]] so of course large areas of the country would be as uninhabitable as Fukushima and Chernobyl. And yes, attempts to clean up the actual reactor site would kill people very quickly. In Fukushima, not even robots hold out for long in the intense radiation, which is why they still haven't located the melted core half a decade after the disaster, and are only very, very slowly managing to get out the old fuel rods from the pools that haven't blown up yet.[[note]]But most likely will, during the next earthquake, which is why time is of the essence and people ''are'' trying to clean up the site as fast as possible.[[/note]]

* The majority of the men in this society are a) armed and b) do not expect to have a chance at a woman — read: any legal sexual outlet whatsoever — unless they're really, really lucky because those government-run brothels are only for the high-ranking members of the government and foreign officials. Gilead shouldn't have lasted seven weeks, let alone seven years.
** It's mentioned that some soldiers are hanged for "gender treachery" (i.e. turning to homosexual sex, probably due to this), but that just means a revolt should have been even likelier.
*** Not necessarily. The regime may be counting on a code of masculine silence to keep their troops in line. In a toxic patriarchal culture, a man will cut off his own hand before admitting that he doesn't have sex regularly or is an "incel".
*** They'd also be counting on no one realizing that, in this culture, admitting you don't have sex regularly wouldn't be admitting anything about your masculinity because you're legally not allowed to do it, and women have no apparent choice who they marry, so you could be Austin Powers and it still wouldn't matter. So Gildead would basically be coasting on an aspect of the very culture they're trying to replace.
* In addition, there's never any hint of action from the rest of the world regarding this- considering that any non-white, non-male, non-... whatever denomination of Christianity Gilead practices individual is either persecuted or executed, there must be some outcry from the rest of the world. At the very least, the UN would be giving the Republic of Gilead major sanctions for human rights violations. In the TV adaptation, Commander Waterford does mention sanctions against Gilead by the European Union.
** The fourth episode mentions the UN discussing sanctions as well.
** Other countries likely don't invade Gilead for the same reason other superpowers don't take up arms against North Korea or Iraq: because it isn't their problem, and would cause way more trouble than its worth. Due to the similarities between Nazi Germany and Gilead, many of the superpowers knew about the Holocaust, but didn't intervene, because they couldn't end it overnight and they were already fighting a war in the rest of Europe and Asia.
** Invading a country by force is generally a last resort. The UN, EU and so forth are simply using the first resort; economically strangling the country with sanctions until it's too weak to stay afloat. In addition, it is mentioned that Canadian and British forces are performing exercises on the border, likely to either defend Canada from any Gilead invasions or to move in on Gilead once the economic sanctions have done their job.
*** The show has implied that the fertility crisis doesn't affect just what remains of the USA, as Mexico is undergoing it, which could extend to the continental North/South America. Even if they did want to start a war against Gilead, they would likely get into trouble due to a lack of soldiers, or the effect it would have if a significant amount of soldiers died fighting a war against them.
* The pilot explicitly mentions lower status men being assigned wives and more to the point, the show jetisons the white supremacist element of the series, meaning that the supply of women of all races are presumably available to the men of Gilead so there is no real shortage; whereas in the books, where minority women were either killed off or exiled.
** Fridge Logic is easily explained by having an Unrealiable Narrator and the fact that it's highly implied throughout the book that the Republic is lying about almost everything to maintain some sort of semblance of function.
** Odds are good that there's a lot of unreported rape and harassment of Marthas going on, that the Marthas don't report because they know they'd be blamed for their own assaults.
** There's also the Fridge Brilliance that this isn't a functional society but a Nazi-esque reactionary one, that we eventually learn blows up within a generation. It still doesn't mean there's not a massive amount of pain, horror, and anger before it collapses. Fascist, but Inefficient indeed.
* Where did [[spoiler:the new Ofglen]] come from? Surely all Handmaids are already assigned to households (we even see that [[spoiler: Janine]] is taken straight from her old posting to the new one, so it's not like there are Handmaids sitting around, waiting to be assigned.
** There might be, though. The government is probably always in the process of bringing in new Handmaids to train and send to postings. It might be her first posting. It's also possible that in this system, some Commanders are high ranking enough that they ''always'' have a Handmaid, so there is always an automatic replacement if necessary. [[spoiler:Ofglen 2]] might have been up and removed from her previous posting if her Commander was lower-ranking, because they needed someone to fill the spot.
** Or her previous Commander could've just plain died. The elite men of Gilead tend to be ''old'' men, and their medical science leaves a lot to be desired.
*** Though probably not the case with the new Ofglen, who appeared mostly ok with her lot as a Handmaid and didn't have much reason to avoid it, a lot of women are made Handmaids after they commit a crime. So if you're a fertile Econowife and you break the law, you can be turned into a Handmaid.
* Chalk this up for ArtisticLicenseBiology: how the hell do the Waterfords honestly think ''raping Offred'' is going to go for them? "Oh, you know what will speed up this birth? TRAUMA." Plus, I don't think that sex (not that I'm calling that fiasco sex--that was RAPE, definitely) was even proven to induce labor outside of a thinly-sourced magazine article.
** The belief that sex works to induce labour is actually fairly widespread. It's the most-discussed means of naturally inducing labours, and has actually been recommended by doctors since the Victorian era. The theory is that ejaculate works to soften the cervix, but this is unreliable and most doctors agree that none of the traditional at-home methods work most of the time. However, this is a genuine old wives' tale that the Waterfords might well genuinely believe. Not that it excuses what they did at all, or diminishes the fact that there was probably a bit of common-or-garden vindictiveness in their motives as well.
** There's also the fact they more or less did it to punish June, Serena for the false labor and embarassing her in front of Aunt Lydia and all the Wives, and Fred for saying the child would never be his. It was more like a two birds, one stone deal: they get a baby quicker and they keep their unruly Handmaid in line out of spite.
* How Gilead carried out its coup is {{handwave}}d in the show, but logistically it makes very little sense. It's said in {{flashback}} {{exposition}} from Fred Waterford that Gilead took over the country with "three attacks", presumably targeting the President, Congress, and Supreme Court.
** There are as of the show's debut nineteen people in direct succession to the Presidency alone[[note]]In order, the vice president, the Speaker of the House, the president ''pro tempore'' of the Senate, and the Cabinet secretaries in order of date of creation of their department, starting with the Secretary of State and, at time of airing, ending with the Secretary of Homeland Security.[[/note]] and the Cabinet secretaries would not necessarily be affected by an attack on the White House as they each work out of their own buildings in Washington most of the time.
*** Given how every politician in America has to wear their religion on their sleeve, how many might secretly be members of the Gilead ideology?
*** For starters, 95 percent of one of the two dominant political parties in America wouldn't.
** Even assuming all 535 members of Congress are present in the Capitol at the time of the attack, they still have to deal with fifty state governors, who would be responsible for appointing new representatives to replace the fallen.
*** See above. As difficult as it is to take a cabinet position as a member of a pseudo-Christian Conspiracy, ''nobody'' in America pays attention to local elections. State Legislatures and Governors could easily fall under the sway of Gilead or be part of the conspiracy from the beginning, especially if that state's culture lines up with Gilead's values.
*** Agree to disagree. Few people members of the public care much about electing their state senators, but most politically involved people in my experience see state governors as at least as important as congresspeople.
** The US military doesn't swear an oath to the President or to the government, but to the United States Constitution. As well, the aforementioned state governors are each the commander-in-chief of a portion of the National Guard. (Not even Americans often realize just how much power US states have when compared to other countries.) It is very unlikely either would stand idly by when blatantly unconstitutional orders, especially to give up their arms to a private army, start issuing from any kind of "interim government".
*** Oaths are one thing, but soldiers are human beings too. They vote, have religious beliefs, and have human needs. If the chain of command is destroyed, the State Governor declares support for Gilead's interim government (especially if it forms with members of the [[TheQuisling original government]] as the leadership), or if society just descends into anarchy- what would ''you'' do? Honor a promise to a scrap of paper that is probably on fire right now, or run for the hills and protect your family?
*** Militaries are surprisingly durable during times of crisis and are trained to stay together; e.g, at the end of the Roman Empire, the Roman army was essentially the only organ of the empire still functioning.
*** Maybe in real-life, but it fits the book's satire about how imbedded many of Gilead's ideas already are in U.S. politics to say that most of the army either joined the Sons of Jacob or at least weren't motivated enough to fight them, because the U.S. army is predominantly male, white, christain and conservative, and the military and police have a history of supporting authoritiarian regimes because they give them more funding, power and glory.
*** Still doesn't make sense. At the very least there would be extreme pockets of resistance and fighting militarily. At best America would have turned into Bosnia, or ''worse''... Syria. There's no way a coup would be that clean. Gilead's government isn't all that steady, but its steadier than it has any reason to be realistically.
** And all this is ''before'' you consider how such a massive plot could avoid the notice of several ''dozen'' state, federal and foreign intelligence agencies (indeed, one of the flashbacks to before the coup mentions the FBI sniffing around the cult).
*** See FBI/CIA/NSA muck-up of Al-Qaeda pre-9/11. All the signs were there that extremists were planning to hijack planes and use them as cruise missiles. Interservice rivalry, bureaucratic red tape, and good-old-fashioned Washington policy making (ignore this threat, focus on that one) could have combined to prevent anyone from doing anything to stop the attack.
-->'''Condoleeza Rice''': "I believe [the memo] said 'Bin-Laden determined to attack the U.S.?'"
** The problem is that the aftermath is depicted as a ''little'' too clean cut. Truthfully America would be a constant warzone. like the InUniverse, example Chicago, but more wide spread. It's easy to buy an American Coup happening given the right circumstances. The problem is that it's hard to believe that Gilead would have been created so cleanly without turning into an Americanized version of the aforementioned Bosnia or Syria.
*** [[https://the-handmaids-tale.fandom.com/wiki/Geography_of_Gilead?file=Gilead_map_%281%29.jpg Promotional maps]] for the TV show seem to indicate a few things. California and the Pacific States, the Deep South (like, the Caribbean coastline and Florida), northern Michigan and its Upper Peninsula, and the Canadian border (barring Maine and New York) are in the hands of Loyalists. The Southwest, Rocky Mountains, and the central United States (Flyover Country) are the colonies or Disputed territories- implying widespread fighting and nuclear meltdowns/detonations. Gilead as we see it on the show is basically New England (minus New Hampshire and Vermont), the Rustbelt, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. Everything else is contested in one way or another. This also lacks the nuance of modern insurgency warfare. The United States "controlled" Iraq during the Second Gulf War if you ONLY looked at a map and didn't turn on the news. Basically we're seeing the state of the States from the most stable and secure part of Gilead. If the show branches out or continues, it will likely show more about the state of the States.
*** In regards to all of the above, the coup is quite simple to dissect. The Commanders had clearly been planning it for a long time, so it makes sense that they'd be converting members of the US government to their way of thinking or getting their own members into places of power where they could facilitate a takeover. The attacks wiped out the President, his cabinet, most of Congress and all of the Supreme Court; it is highly likely that the Commanders massacred everyone in the line of succession who wasn't on their side and spared the officials who were, allowing for a (on the surface) legitimate transfer of power. As for the CIA/FBI debate, it was mentioned in a flashback by Fred that the FBI were starting to get suspicious and investigating the Commanders, so they accelerated their coup plans and wiped out the government before the FBI could nail them for the conspiracy. As for the military, an American refugee in Canada reveals to Moira that he was a US Marine and his division were absorbed into the new Gilead army, but rebelled against them. Gilead's takeover was not easy or swift; the suspension of the Constitution and nearly all civil liberties would not have been received well by vast swathes of the population, so there would have been widespread violence and resistance from both police and army units that refused to capitulate to the new government and civilian militias.
** If a coup de'tat were to happen in the U.S., the Commanders wouldn't be the ones to pull it off given how incompetent their rule of Gilead portrays them as. I know what you're thinking; they're not stupid, just fanatical, and while purging the land of sinners didn't require them doing anything that violated their ideology, ruling a country and defeating an infertility epidemic did. But a very common conceit of fanatics and evangelicals is that they think more people agree with them than really do, so it seems inevitable that, in their attempts to set up their coup, they would have tried to recruit someone who didn't agree with them and would rat them out (and the FBI would not ignore a report like that coming from someone important). Plus, overconfidence is overconfidence, and believing God is on their side has clearly given the Commanders tons of it, so their chances at suceeding at something that would require so much preparation and caution seem pretty slim. The novel effectively runs on the AnthropicPrinciple.
* The Canadian government inviting the Waterfords to negotiations in Toronto, rather than the capital Ottawa, at first comes off as odd, but Canada wants to deal pragmatically and quietly with the Gileadan regime. If they had hosted the Waterfords in Ottawa it likely would have drawn the ire of the rest of the international community.
** It also could have been another way to purposely show Canada does not actually approve of their actions. Not only did Canada assign lower-ranking civil servants who represented groups that Gilead oppresses (women and LGBT), they made sure Fred and Serena were hundreds of miles from the Prime Minister and rest of Canada's government.
** From a production standpoint it also makes sense since the show is filmed in Toronto.

* The Vietnamese translation deliberately used loanwords from Chinese to translate the terms (Handmaid, Unwomen, etc.). This gives the series an archaic feeling, symbolizing Gilead's intention to return to "traditional" values, with the added weight of historical restraints placed on women in a Confucian system in Vietnam and China's feudal pasts. The book cover also reflected this by using a font that is closely associated with Chinese novels published in Vietnam, accompanied by the image of a woman whose face is hidden by a white cowl, revealing pale skin and red lips, the ideal of ancient aristocratic beauty.

* What would happen to closeted, assigned-female-at-birth, non-feminine transgender and nonbinary people? If they're outed, they risk facing punishment for "gender treachery". If they're closeted and fertile, dysphoria from being constantly misgendered would be the least of their problems.

** Even worse, imagine that three weeks before the coup, you were sent out of the US for official business, (EG: As a diplomat, or even as a teacher)and all of a sudden you are cut off from all communications with your loved ones/friends, you have no idea what's happening, and when news does get out, you are left to imagine the worst has happened. Same goes vice-versa with your loved ones.

* June's [[spoiler: QuestionableConsent sex scene with Luke at the end of Season 4, Episode 7]] is sadly TruthinTelevision in regards to survivors of sexual trauma. This troper is no way excusing her actions, but it's likely June has PTSD and Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS). Rape survivors suffering RTS can exhibit hypersexuality as a means of gaining control over their bodies.

* Gilead is completely unsustainable from a population standpoint. If the only fertile women are being used as handmaids, who are only available for the elite, and the handmaids are both trafficked to other countries AND sent to the colonies to die if they become unruly, then the supply cannot possibly meet the demand, as there is no way to replenish the population and nobody wants to immigrate to Gilead.
** Gilead realises this once the handmaid population suddenly drops, and retrieves some former handmaids from the colonies.
* In the series, there is no longer a (obvious) white supremacy. While Gilead residents of all classes are racially diverse- it is still not a multicultural society, since all cultural differences (such as religion and attire) have been wiped out. It is likely that this has been done to protest extremists of both wings regarding race: both the ultra-conservative super-strict churches where the only diversity allowed is race; as well as ultra-liberals who think that as long as something is not racist, it is not evil and thus should be tolerated. Not the first time the Handmaid's Tale protests extremist views of both wings (such as regarding porn)- so it makes perfect sense.

*** They vaguely touch on this in Season 3. Gilead has "gone green" but not from any desire to save the environment, only to save ''themselves'' from the environment. They suspect that pollution might also be affecting the fertility rates and switched to renewables. It might not be too big a leap to think they did the same with farming- they didn't make an alliance with Green Peace to seize power and end factory farming, just held a belief that GMOs might have affected fertility rates. Also doubles as an anti-intellectual, returning-to-the-good-old-days theme.

* Research has proven that babies often need skin to skin contact with their parents or caregivers in order to survive. The Putnams never saw Charlotte as anything more than a status symbol and certainly never gave her hugs or cuddles even when she was fully clothed, let alone skin to skin, so it's not that surprising when she starts to wane. By contrast, when Janine undresses and cradles her daughter close, Charlotte starts to improve.

* One would assume that Gilead would reference the original inspirations for their Handmaids more often - Hagar, Bilhah, and Zilpah - but they seem to prefer the names of their mistresses. The Rachel and Leah Center, for instance. But then they also take away the names of the Handmaids themselves, so they probably wouldn't want to humanize these women's "role models" either.
** This could go along with the idea they don't let women read the Bible so they don't realize their laws are just a QuoteMine blender. Yes, Bilhah and Zilphah being "handmaids" in our sense, may seem like they were trusted companions and confidants, but really they were slaves, and Hammurabi's Code dictated that if you couldn't get pregnant, you had your husband impregnate the slave and raise the child for your own. Hagar is likely never brought up because of the full story: Sarah was impatient that God wouldn't give her a child, so she had Abraham sleep with (ie rape) her handmaid, but grew jealous and ran the pregnant girl out of town, but she returned. After the baby was born, she ran the child and the mother into the desert to die, but Hagar only returned because an angel commanded it. And when Isaac was born, he and his teenaged brother, Ishmael argued often. A Handmaid, if permitted to read, could bring this tale up as a reason for why the Handmaid system is flawed, which Gilead certainly wouldn't want.

* If what the doctor tells Offred is true, and it is actually the men who are sterile, it means that the entire Handmaid system is doomed to fail. If all "fertile" women have become handmaids, and only a small portion of them can have children (because many of the Commanders are sterile), and the unruly ones are executed, they will eventually just run out of them.

* With Offred out of the way, whatever her fate, there's no reason to hold Hannah's safety over her head and therefore no reason to keep Hannah alive or safe, except the lack of children.
** Possibly lessened with the fact that we learn in Season 2 it was virtually illegal for Fred to arrange a clandestine meeting. It was more Serena was trying to keep June in line the same way a parent promises they'll throw away all your toys or take away your iPad if you don't eat your dinner or clean your room, but at the end of the day, just say it to get you to behave.

** Even worse, imagine that three weeks before the coup, you were sent out of the US for official business, (EG: As a diplomat, or even as a teacher)and all of a sudden you are cut off from all communications with your loved ones/friends, you have no idea what's happening, and when news does get out, you are left to imagine the worst has happened. Same goes vis-versa with your loved ones.

** What are the little girls of Gilead being taught if women can't read or write in this regime? These children probably aren't even read stories to, since the female teachers can't read either.

** Eden is so scarily naï ve and her mother has engrained into her that her only purpose is to care for the home, her husband, and to bear children. A fun reminder that she is only ''fifteen''.

** FridgeTearker, since Eden could've very well grown up among the Quiverfull movement or some similar Christian fundamentalist group that preaches that women are to be homemakers and [[BabyFactory Baby Factories]]. It's still heartbreaking.

** There might be, though. The government is probably always in the process of bringing in new handmaids to train and send to postings. It might be her first posting. It's also possible that in this system, some Commanders are high ranking enough that they ''always'' have a Handmaid, so there is always an automatic replacement if necessary. [[spoiler:Ofglen 2]] might have been up and removed from her previous posting if her Commander was lower-ranking, because they needed someone to fill the spot.

*** Though probably not the case with the new Ofglen, who appeared mostly ok with her lot as a handmaid and didn't have much reason to avoid it, a lot of women are made handmaids after they commit a crime. So if you're a fertile Econowife and you break the law, you can be turned into a handmaid.

** The problem is that the aftermath is depicted as a ''little'' too clean cut. Truthfully America would be a constant warzone. like the InUniverse, example Chicago, but more wide spread. It's easy to buy an American Coup happening given the right circumstances. The problem is that it's hard to believe that Giliad would have been created so cleanly without turning into an Americanized version of the aforementioned Bosnia or Syria.

* The Canadian government inviting the Waterfords to negotiations in Toronto, rather than the capital Ottawa, at first comes off as odd but Canada wants to deal pragmatically and quietly with the Gileadan regime. If they had hosted the Waterfords in Ottawa it likely would have drawn the ire of the rest of the international community.
** It also could have been another way to purposely show Canada does not actually approve of their actions. Not only did Canada assign lower-ranking civil servants who represented groups that Gilead oppresses (women and LGBT), they made sure Fred and Serena were hundreds of miles from the Prime Minister and rest of Canada's government.

* Taking into account Esther's age and her status as Wife rather than Econoperson, she is most likely the daughter of a commander. If she is a commander's biological child, then her parents were partially responsible for the creation of Gilead, and if she was stolen, it's possible that she is either an orphan or that she was separated from her biological parents, who may be in Canada wondering where she is.

* If [[spoiler: Serena is pregnant by Fred]], he could potentially be Nichole's father.

* Also in the series, Ambassador Castillo from Mexico is a woman. Offred seems surprised at this. Before Gilead, the USA was the more progressive and gender-egalitarian nation, with Mexico being more conservative and having somewhat stricter (though not tremendously so) gender roles. This is likely done to show that Gilead is even more repressive and backwards than a country that once upon a time was seen as the more conservative neighbor to the more progressive USA.
** Latin American countries aren't as backwards as this troper might think. My mother is an ambassador from Colombia and she wasn't the first, nor will she be the last. In stark contrast, the USA doesn't have as many female ambassadors or diplomats representing them abroad, they're almost entirely white men. I mean I do understand the underlying point they're trying to make but the USA, as of right now/2015 (when the novel takes place) isn't that progressive in comparison with its allegedly conservative neighbors. I mean yes, LATAM is more conservative, okay, but is the US really that far away? I don't think so.
*** Likely a comment on how many people in Western countries (like the United States) believe they are so much more progressive on women's rights than countries populated by people of color despite the fact that many countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia have tribes with matrilineal lineages, have elected female heads of state, offer unrestricted access to family planning, and often offer paid family leave while the United States is patriarchal, hasn't elected a female president as of this writing, access to family planning varies depending on the state, and only a few employers offer paid family leave.