#Obergruppenführer John Smith

[pedroam-bang]

The Man In The High Castle (2016)

“The future belongs to those who change it.”

[exitroute]

RUFUS SEWELL as OBERGRUPPENFÜHRER JOHN SMITH The Man in the High Castle, 2015.

[mikimeiko]

This. This exchange makes... no sense! When I saw it the first time I thought I might have missed something but I’ve been rewatching just the John Smith storyline and in all the scenes before this ones there was NOT enough build up to warrant such a choice. Yes they are not in the best place and yes they have been falling apart for a while, but “running away from you”? Come on!

[mohich]

obergruppenführer john smith

[campaignstripes-blog]

A small little art cover for a Man in the High Castle Fic I’m helping co-write, the Right Hand of God. 

Erich is one of my favourite unexplored characters. Man did not deserve to go out the way he did ;;

[sirbogarde]

Joel calling Rufus “Ruf” in his Instagram story is so cute reblog if you agree

also thank the gods for Joel and all his behind the scenes pictures and videos over the seasons, we don’t deserve him

[muffinwalloper]

Obergruppana

[oberstgruppana]

[alliwantisyouandme]

Things are getting very dangerous • #ResistanceRises

[dr-thackery]

“Had he been depressed?” “Not that I know of.”

John Smith || The Mission

Edited by Sarge (yours truly)

[arinhelmelleide]

Death and Life

*Spoilers for Season 2 of Man in the High Castle*

An Introspective Joeliana Oneshot in Joe’s POV

“What about Juliana Crain?” I ask, changing the topic, but failing to keep the anger out of my voice.

Those men had families, children! And John Smith just dismissed and killed them like they were less than human. Because they were different, and doing something illegal to try to survive and feed their families.

“Oh, she’s dead.”

That knocks the wind outta me. I hear blood pounding in my ears and can’t keep the shock from my face.

“Almost certainly.” A kick in the ribs while I’m down. I lean back in the plush chair, trying to process this.

Juliana. Gorgeous, brave, vibrant Juliana. Dead?

I can still feel the ghost of her lips on my cheek. Her hand in mine, so delicate. Remember how small and fragile she had felt in my arms as I practically carried her back from the bridge outside Canon City.

How her eyes seemed to shift from green to blue depending on the light...

I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears. That she believed in me, not the film. That I had changed after meeting her, that I wanted to do the right thing.

The Obergruppenfuhrer is still talking, and I tilt my head back as I feel the first tingling of tears behind my eyes. I can’t, won’t let a single tear even begin to well in my eyes in front of this bastard. He already suspects too much.

“You have to learn to leave your feelings out of it, Joe.”

Screw it.

“I can’t do that, sir.”

Why didn’t I have Obergruppenfuhrer Smith forcibly removed from the property? Why did I agreed to have ‘a private word?’ Out of a stupid sense of loyalty? Even if all this man has ever done is lie and manipulate me. For that one brief day, he had made me a part of his family, treated me like a son. He let me know what it was like to have a father who cared.

But it was all lies. Like everything else in my life.

Except her. Except Juliana.

She’d only ever lied about her name, when we first met, but I understood why she did that. She had never lied about the important things.

All I ever did was lie to her. Until that last hour, when she had helped me get away. When I told her that I changed because of her, that I wanted to do the right thing.

John Smith is asking me to put aside my anger. To help him save lives, hundreds of thousands of lives.

“Lives of people we love.” I scoff. “Rita, Buddy…” I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the reminder of my old life, before Her. “Helen, the kids…” I put a hand to my mouth, trying to hide my agitation, and failing.

“What makes you think-”

“Juliana Crain.” I freeze, confusion settling in. But I can feel a small flicker of hope, that she is alive.

Juliana’s lips against my own. A whisper in my ear. ‘No. I’m alive.’

“What?” I lean forward, demanding an answer.

“She’s been living in New York, Joe. Under my protection.” He says it so matter-of-factly like he’s stating the obvious.

“No, no.” I shake my head. “No, I know that’s a lie.” I try to quash that hope, seeing the triumph on the Obergruppenfuhrer’s face.

“My family sponsored her citizenship. You can check it with one call.” I feel all the same emotions I did when John had told me she was dead. A sense of turmoil, denial, and heartbreak.

“She was in the Resistance. You would’ve never have granted that.” Leaning forward, I clasp my hands together to hide the shaking. I have to believe this is some sort of trick. That John was lying.

But what if it is true? He said I could call to check…

“When I saw how important she was, I kept her alive.” John is relaxed, holding my gaze, no fidgeting. He’s telling the truth.

For an instant I feel my mouth want to curve up into a smile.

She’s alive! Juliana is alive!

But the full weight of what Smith is saying lands on me. Anger, and pure unadulterated hatred fills me. He knew Juliana was my weakness and deliberately kept this from me until the most opportune moment. At least, opportune for the Obergruppenfuhrer.

“You manipulative, son of a bitch.” I grind my teeth together at the nonchalant shrug I receive in return.

Good? Bad? Somewhere in between?

[laurielover1912]

In which Juliana Crain and John Smith continue to have incredibly hot sex.

(And they chat a bit too but don’t let that distract you from the sex.)

[mikimeiko]

Some thoughts on the (fake! fictional! NOT REAL) obergruppenführer who stole my heart in the past few days.

There will be spoilers for all four seasons of The Man in the High Castle because I NEED TO TALK ABOUT STUFF.

I just watched a very, very long interview with Rufus Sewell in which, among many other things, he talked about how he pushed and pushed against the writing (and the writers) of the show to make Smith more than a one-dimensional villain, and it made very clear why his character felt so different and engaging compared to most of the other, while also putting my finger on the main problem with the show: the other characters didn’t develop, they moved from one trope to another following events that happened to them, not integrating but substituting behaviors in a very flat and uninteresting way (I think Frank might have had the worst of this: from cowering-quiet-man to vengeful-with-nothing-to-lose to deeply-spiritual-and-opposed-to-violence). It was very hard to care about these people because they never felt like complete people; it was very easy to feel with John Smith - even while he was doing horrifying things, even if you never excused his behavior - because of how profoundly human he was in every single scene.

From the beginning he is a high ranking nazi officer, with all this entails; and we see him do atrocious things on a smaller and then bigger scale. He is FUCKING SCARY in every interaction he has, except perhaps in some scenes with his family. He projects calm and confidence and makes threats with the ease of someone who is used to be taken deadly seriously. We see the effects these encounters have on others, and we feel the impact. But. We also see this tiny moments of tenderness and affection, and the fierce defensiveness towards people he considers his own (his family first and foremost, but we also see this side with Erich Raeder and on a couple of occasions with Joe Blake).

Then, he learns that his son has an untreatable condition (which means a death sentence under nazi rule). He tries to follow the rules but can’t, because of course everything the Reich does to undesirables is something you can live with...until the undesirable is a real human person you know, your son; the son that was very likely one of the main reasons you decided to switch sides for. He reacts with violence and a little foolishness in killing the doctor; he tries to cover his traces but this is not an event that can be easily swept under a rug, and I was glad the series decided to deal with the consequences. Of course Thomas then finds out and, good brainwashed nazi that he is, turns himself in to the authorities, never realizing how far the ripples of his action will go.

Helen starts to fall apart, and to drift away from John. John manages to keep the façade but he is not the same character that he was in the beginning, and it shows. The core of the character is still there though: his endgame is safety, his and his family’s. In a way, having compromised everything he has up until now is precisely the reason why he has to keep going, because otherwise all would have been for nothing (there’s an interesting parallel here with the suicide of General Yamori after Japan withdraws from the US territory, since this surrender had made the death of his two sons in the war a useless tragedy). It’s not just that though: he clearly enjoys the position of power he occupies, even with all the risks and responsibilities that come with it, and this is confirmed by alt-John in his conversation with Juliana on why he decided to leave the army (that conversation was one of my favorite bits of season 4: the fact that he saw a side of himself that he didn’t like emerge when he was doing something that he was “naturally good at” and decided - in a universe where the consequences would be less dramatic - to go in a different direction, even if that meant giving up possible benefits and privileges).

He manages to wiggle out of a potentially destroying situation by his usual means of threats and violence, but also with a "loving help" from Himmler (in the form of the murder of Erich Raeder because of the secrets he knew; you can see the impact of the realization that he is the cause of Erich's death when John finds out). This escape comes with not-so-subtle threat to the life of Helen if he is not able to control her and her grieving behavior better. He is clearly terrified by the idea of losing her; but the only way in which he is able to convey this to Helen is through (once again) a very menacing conversation. The very thing that drives him, this image of the protector of his family that he has constructed over the years as a mean of protecting and silencing his inner self, is the thing that is breaking his connection to the people he cares most about.

Then he travels to the alt-universe, and it's heartbreaking: Helen is warm and sunny and loving and everything she hasn't been able to be since the death of their son; and then he sees Thomas, and in that moment it's like everything in him his just melting and rising and almost choking him. The love he has for this people is so clear and painful it's hard to watch. But two equally shattering things happen in the span of an afternoon: he finds out that Thomas wants to enlist for the war in Vietnam; he sees his close friend Daniel, his Jewish close friend Daniel, alive. (Small aside on Thomas: I don't know if it's because I'm not American, but I swear that his attitude toward the war just made me think that it wasn't the nazi that brainwashed him, he just was the same fucking nationalist in every universe - just to a different nation) He tries to handle Thomas in the same way he "handles" everything in his universe, but here it's alien and only pushes Thomas farther away from him. Then he sees the friend that he abandoned and later left to die in the camps, and it breaks him all over again: he cannot look him in the eye, he's so overwhelmed by guilt and other emotions he doesn't want to feel that all he can do is also push him away. He sees the direct effect of his choices and actions and he cannot bear it. Thomas joins the army, and when the marines come to get him John tries to stop them by acting like he would in his world, but <i>it doesn't work</i>. He has no power here, and this is not a pleasant feeling (it's not just that he cannot save his son, again; it is also the way the soldiers just ignore him). Helen tries to talk with him, to deal with the pain together like I imagine she used to do with her John; but he lashes out, and she is clearly disturbed by his behavior. He has to make a decision - to go back to the portal and his universe or to stay in this universe possibly for good. I've read many people taking this as one of the moments in which he could have "chosen the good path" and didn't, but I think by now he has realized that living in this universe is not a true possibility for him. He is not this John, all the choices and action he has taken in the past fifteen years have made him a person who couldn't just slip into this reality and be happy. He is broken and he knows it; he has also experienced the lack of power he has here, and he didn't like it.

And then we get to the ending: massive evidence has been collected about his and his family's unadeherence to the Reich's belief system, and it seems his time has finally come. His old friend and second in command Bill Whitcroft suggests that North America could just leave the Reich and go to war with it, due to the large arsenal they have in the territory and his belief that most Americans would be on their side; John refuses, possibly because he just cannot see this as a viable option since it carries the implication that it could have been done sooner. Once again, he finds a way out through violence and an unlikely alliance (this felt very rushed, by the way). He is now the Fuhrer of a separate American Reich, while his ally reigns on the  rest of the Reich territories. Here something weird happens (something that feels like bad writing more than character decisions): even though he spoke against an attack on the major cities of the western side of the US in the consultation with Himmler and the other generals, now that he is in charge decides to go along with the plan as it was. Helen finds out that part of the plan of attack is the institution of more concentration camps and the elimination of thousands of "undesirables"; horrified, she gives the rebels the information they need to stop the train John will be riding on the next day and potentially kill him. We see John struggle while reading this information himself; and later with giving the command to launch the attack. But he still does it.

John and Helen have an incredible final scene on the train, in which he tells her about alt-Thomas and his plan to kidnap him to bring him to this universe even if it means that he will have to live as a prisoners since everyone think he is dead. This is not a plan that involves anyone happiness, not even his own (when Helen tells him that Thomas is going to hate them, he says he knows and that he doesn't care); this is about guilt and powerlessness. "I can fix it" is a recurring phrase he says to himself and others regarding Thomas having gone to Vietnam; this plan is his way to regain control over the situation, even at the cost of everything else. Helen confronts him about their life and their choices, and this exchange follows: Helen: "This thing that we have be a part of... it is a crime" John: "I know" Helen: "It has to stop" John: "I don't know how" John is a very controlled and very controlling men, but in this moment he admits the truth - to Helen and to himself: he doesn't feel like he has control over this VERY BIG PORTION of his life, he doesn't know how to stop without losing his identity in the process.

In the same interview I mentioned in the beginning, Rufus Sewell said that he managed to push against the writing of Smith as a full out villain until the very last episode. I think the "bad writing" I pointed out before was part of this, the decision to make him go there even when he no longer needed to to show that it was actually him all along. But Rufus understanding of the character clearly comes through in his final scenes. When I watched this scene, I didn't seen a pure, evil villain: I saw a man that knew very well that what he was doing was not THE RIGHT THING TO DO but was too far gone in this constructed personality of the perfect nazi to allow himself the possibility of change. I see John Smith as a truly tragic character, a man with the ability to do good who made one big bad decision in a moment when he felt like he had no other options, and then rebuilt his personality around that choice for years, making it impossible for himself to escape. Every time something happened that might have made him change, all this overstructure pushed his feelings down more, because to do otherwise would have been to break his self to pieces.

I think what's important here is the fact that John Smith is not a sympathetic character in the sense that his actions are excusable because "poor thing he was just suffering very much"; John Smith is an interesting character because he feels human in a very complex way. His evil is not excused by his humanity, his evil is caused by his humanity: he is so far gone in his in-group/out-group mentality that at first the in-group became just his family and in the end it became just his self.

A one-dimensional, all out evil villain can be satisfying for the catharsis of seeing him destroyed, but that's not how things usually work in the real world. I loved John Smith the character because he was, well, a character; I couldn't love anything about him if he was a real life person. But I didn't feel guilty when I felt bad for him because "he's a fucking nazi and I don't sympathize with fucking nazis". I felt bad for him at times because I felt sympathetic to our shared humanity (yes, even if he is a fictional character, but otherwise we wouldn't consume fiction the way we do). I also recognize some of him, of his worst traits, in myself - as difficult and loathsome as the thought is; but I think accepting that we as human have dark places inside can help us manage them better, choosing to act on some thoughts and impulses and not on others. And from this point of view, characters like John Smith can be really important.

[thingsidrawwhilewatchingtv]

[wordsofsplendor]

He Is Gentle

In which John Smith is awfully gentle, apparently. We all know he can be. My very first TMITHC ficlet. The prospect of reading your comments excites me greatly. ;-)

Not for the first time since they'd become intimate, Juliana found herself joyously baffled by his tenderness. Her heart was full, overwhelmed, almost unable to assimilate his careful touches. He'd been seeking absolution with his head resting on her lower stomach, his lips near her mound. She could feel his breath on her, as well as his fingers as they traced patterns over her scarred flesh. He'd kiss the apex of her thighs periodically, every time he'd feel the muscles of her abdomen twitch in response to his ministrations. If he kept doing that, he'd have her believe him. She was close, so very close to believing that she'd be enough, that she WAS enough, barren as she was. He made her doubt that, not too long ago. "Are you alright?" he'd ask once every two or three minutes. He was perceptive, analytical and incredibly good at reading people; at reading her. Her surprise, the delightful shock caused by their newfound closeness was not lost on him. He chuckled, a cosmic, genuine sound, "I've asked you a minute ago, didn't I?" "Mm, five minutes ago, perhaps," she murmured a confirmation and was quick to run her fingers through his hair. He wasn't alone in this, in their new, fragile reality. She had to reaffirm this, he had to know. "I'm alright. Better. Very good even." He lifted his head as his fingers traveled to the hairs of her mound, just to stroke and soothe. When he moved two fingers down along her folds, she laughed. "John, wait. It's too soon," she giggled and squirmed long enough for him to move, to face her and kiss both her eyelids. His hands remained planted on her wet flesh as he enveloped her. "Sleep, sweetheart." "Only if you hold me, John." And he did.

[pedroam-bang]

The Man In The High Castle (2016)

“The future belongs to those who change it.”