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Lets Read: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

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He's definetely writing in a way that Otherizes the British the way Orientalist stuff Otherizes East Asian countries and the like. Comparing it to a theme park version of Britain is very apt. As I recall, it is not going to get better when he actually writes about East Asian countries (Japan in this case). That will just be Orientalism Classic TM.
 
Whachamacallit said:
Now this chapter I remember vividly, mainly because I was bewildered that old royalty would matter so much when I read the book all those years ago. In retrospect, I took Max Brook's presentation of the UK at his word and only thought, "Oh jeez, I guess those british people must be culturally attuned to worship royality for some reason." It kind of seems... Occidentalist? I don't know if that's the right word..
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He managed to develop racism against white British people from first principles, which is impressive on some level.
 
Havocfett said:
He managed to develop racism against white British people from first principles, which is impressive on some level.
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When you put it like that, it'd be almost respectable if it weren't for his everything else.

But gods, this passage... When I was reading this book like 15 years ago I was credulous enough to take that chapter mostly at face value, but I really should've known better even then. I've been to castles, I lived in bloody Pembrokeshire, the family used to make a regular expedition of visiting this or that old castle. I was a castle kid with those old illustrated cross-section books, which, fine, may have meant I was inclined to look fondly on them, but it also meant that even at that age I knew how big the holes in their walls are!
 
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ZabetTheRabbit said:
He's definetely writing in a way that Otherizes the British the way Orientalist stuff Otherizes East Asian countries and the like. Comparing it to a theme park version of Britain is very apt. As I recall, it is not going to get better when he actually writes about East Asian countries (Japan in this case). That will just be Orientalism Classic TM.
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God, the Japan chapters are so bad. I think I remember SparkNotes - who aren't exactly known for being critical of the books they're summarising on their website - noting that Brooks' stated "we're taking the best of Japan's current and past" moral was full of it.
 
So in reading this between the lines, the Red Guards could have made that one that last push north and stormed Windsor Castle, the symbolic last redoubt of the British Monarchy... but their leadership instead sent them south to London to deal with the 'real enemy of humanity', the Zeds. In the process, they 'just happened' to attrite their own fighting forces — including many of the hardcore believers who might have pushed for a proper final reckoning with the visibly out-of-touch monarchists — to the point where it was 'easier' to simply accept terms and be folded back into the 'real' United Kingdom. :jackiechan:

I mean, I can see the logic — when you just came off of winning a war against the dead, with all the attendant carnage and destruction and misery, why would you dive straight into another war with the living? — but considering that most of the 'governments' that emerge in Brooks' narrative are apparently some flavour of authoritarianism or outright dictatorships (the British 'monarchist' state included), the post-WWZ UK might have emerged from the crisis a far less shitty place if the Red Guards had stayed the course and torn down the last remnants of the old order to rebuild from scratch.
(Then again, that could well have ended with humans getting so absorbed fighting fellow humans that the Zeds ended up finishing off both sides anyway, at least on the UK mainland. See also: the fratricidal infighting and self-cannibalism on the Republican side that ended up handing the Spanish Civil War to Franco's Nationalists....)

[All OOC, of course — I have no idea how I'd handle a Zed apocalypse, especially one that seems to have occurred mostly because multiple direct Acts of Writer God forced it to 'succeed', so I wouldn't know where to start RP'ing a 'Z-sona'.]
 
Whachamacallit said:
Now this chapter I remember vividly, mainly because I was bewildered that old royalty would matter so much when I read the book all those years ago. In retrospect, I took Max Brook's presentation of the UK at his word and only thought, "Oh jeez, I guess those british people must be culturally attuned to worship royality for some reason." It kind of seems... Occidentalist? I don't know if that's the right word..
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I don't think that's the right word but I get what you mean, it's the same basic mechanisms of 'Orientalism' applied to a western country.
 
Imrix said:
When you put it like that, it'd be almost respectable if it weren't for his everything else.

But gods, this passage... When I was reading this book like 15 years ago I was credulous enough to take that chapter mostly at face value, but I really should've known better even then. I've been to castles, I lived in bloody Pembrokeshire, the family used to make a regular expedition of visiting this or that old castle. I was a castle kid with those old illustrated cross-section books, which, fine, may have meant I was inclined to look fondly on them, but it also meant that even at that age I knew how big the holes in their walls are!
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In fairness, jury-rigging barricades in even large holes in a wall is achievable enough; zombies aren't nearly as good at breaking into things as a bunch of human beings with tools would be.

I'd expect it to be all the other problems with trying to live in a medieval castle with no amenities that would kill you.
 
Also, sorry Max Brooks, but if I'm in need of Proper Looking Medival Castles That Would Make For A Rad Last Siege Against Zombies And Also That Are In France Because Europe Is A ThemePark

I'm going to talk about Carcassonne, come on
 
And if you want an archetypal castle in the UK you should be pulling on Bodiam, which has a sick moat and complete walls, and is basically the platonic image of a castle that you think of when you hear the word, instead of fucking Windsor, which doesn't even look cool.
 
BiopunkOtrera said:
I think everyone in France is sorta wondering how long it's going to take for England to either blow up into an insurgency or balkanize honestly. Like, and those of you over there can talk about it... or not, with more authorities, but as a travelling merchant every so often, the impression I get is that it's more and more unlivable. You basically have to pay off local officials and cops to do most everything, and the shakedowns are quite unpredictable, so it's hard to even factor them in as the cost of doing business.

That and the decision to increasingly hunt down Red Guard veterans rather than just allow them to live quietly is eventually going to blow up in the Royalists face.
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It's 100% going to explode. The entire country is likely to balkanise to be be honest and you can see the cracks no matter what wallpaper the royalists try to hide it with.

It's shocking how prevalent discussion on how shit things are though. I travel a fair bit due to my job and often get talking to people and outside of the royalist enclaves, its almost at the level of being discussed in the streets due to how little people fear the government. The incredibly underfunded police and prevalence of guns among the populace definitely contributes a fair bit though.

The bribes and shakedowns are big contributors to this unrest as well. Loads of the councils and police forces got stuffed with royal boot lickers who are almost universally corrupt or incompetent. It's a desperate move in order to hold on to power but their incompetence is staggering, particularly with the vote rigging they seem to be getting a taste for.

The whole Red Guard affair is ringing alarm bells for me though. If anything is going to be a Franz Ferdinand moment it would be some act of stupidity from the police as they try and hunt down someone. That or the rumours are true and the government tries and bans people from having guns.

Also if your looking to trade in Britain try hitting up the guys in Barry. Just get in contact with the local council and they should be able to smooth over everything.
 
Simon_Jester said:
There are a lot of English traditions.

Putting the king on trial and chopping his head off is also an English tradition.
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I mean, we've only done it the once, not sure that counts as 'tradition'. 'A good idea', maybe, but not really a 'tradition'.

(And of course we then put Cromwell in as king-except-not-technically-called-that and then we invited a new king in so uh, it didn't exactly stick.)
 
Kadmus said:
I mean, we've only done it the once, not sure that counts as 'tradition'. 'A good idea', maybe, but not really a 'tradition'.
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The observed behavior of the royalists informs us that getting to play Calvinball with what is and is not a tradition for temporary convenience is most definitely an English tradition these days.

It therefore follows that if chopping the king's head off for fucking around wasn't a tradition before, it can be now! :D

(And of course we then put Cromwell in as king-except-not-technically-called-that and then we invited a new king in so uh, it didn't exactly stick.)
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Now now, if we restricted ourselves to traditions that were not only a good idea at the time but that ended in unmitigated success and only good things, we'd never have any traditions at all! :D
 
Rule 3: Be Civil - Personal Attacks
Scrivener said:
what a fucking retard.
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Yes, how dare someone starving to death be rightfully annoyed at the luxuries and safeties enjoyed by the rich. That's definitely stupid of them, and 'whining'. How about you go take a long walk off a short pier, and stop being a fucking idiot.
 
Trace Coburn said:
I mean, I can see the logic — when you just came off of winning a war against the dead, with all the attendant carnage and destruction and misery, why would you dive straight into another war with the living?
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I can kinda see the logic as well but only with certain caveats, like the Royalist's being far more powerful than they appear.
The impressions I've gotten is that the Socialist Republic was doing far better than the Royalist government which seemed to exist primary as disconnected enclaves. So it very well may have been that no fight would've taken place as doing so would be moot. If the royalist forces are at the point where the lose of one location, namely Windsor, is all that's standing between them and total dissolution, than they've effectively lost anyway.

The implications is that the leaders of the republic either never believed in what they claimed too, a dubious proposition considering they presently ran half the UK at one point, or they didn't think they could win. However, at the same time if the preservation of their people was a goal deliberately getting them slaughtered by the thousands stands against that.

So I'm rather confused as to exactly why this happened? Because from my perspective it looks a little like if during WW2 the United States decided to ally Germany in late June of 45 and knowing this would be an unpopular opinion collaborated wit the Nazi's to get The entire Allied Expeditionary Force under Eisenhower killed to facilitate it. Which is just...baffling, right?

There must be more to what went down that our narrator either doesn't know or hasn't revealed yet. Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to take their account of how all this went down as accurate.
 
Righteous Ham said:
I can kinda see the logic as well but only with certain caveats, like the Royalist's being far more powerful than they appear.
The impressions I've gotten is that the Socialist Republic was doing far better than the Royalist government which seemed to exist primary as disconnected enclaves. So it very well may have been that no fight would've taken place as doing so would be moot. If the royalist forces are at the point where the lose of one location, namely Windsor, is all that's standing between them and total dissolution, than they've effectively lost anyway.

The implications is that the leaders of the republic either never believed in what they claimed too, a dubious proposition considering they presently ran half the UK at one point, or they didn't think they could win. However, at the same time if the preservation of their people was a goal deliberately getting them slaughtered by the thousands stands against that.

So I'm rather confused as to exactly why this happened? Because from my perspective it looks a little like if during WW2 the United States decided to ally Germany in late June of 45 and knowing this would be an unpopular opinion collaborated wit the Nazi's to get The entire Allied Expeditionary Force under Eisenhower killed to facilitate it. Which is just...baffling, right?

There must be more to what went down that our narrator either doesn't know or hasn't revealed yet. Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to take their account of how all this went down as accurate.
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The Royalist Government held almost all of Scotland by this stage, including the central belt, and the entire pre-war military, less maybe twenty thousand soldiers dead in their abortive earlier attempts to fall back. The loss of Windsor Castle would have meant the probable destruction of Royalist Britain in much the same way that the loss of West Berlin would've signalled the beginning of a war between East and West Germany; the material contribution to the war effort is minimal, but it serves as an opening shot.

So far as the leadership goes - they believed they could get concessions from the Right because they were in a position of power over it, and that would allow them to avoid compromising with their own left flank, which was far more radical than the leadership.

The point of comparison is probably closer to Germany in 1919 than Germany in 1945.
 
DovaKit said:
It's 100% going to explode. The entire country is likely to balkanise to be be honest and you can see the cracks no matter what wallpaper the royalists try to hide it with.

It's shocking how prevalent discussion on how shit things are though. I travel a fair bit due to my job and often get talking to people and outside of the royalist enclaves, its almost at the level of being discussed in the streets due to how little people fear the government. The incredibly underfunded police and prevalence of guns among the populace definitely contributes a fair bit though.

The bribes and shakedowns are big contributors to this unrest as well. Loads of the councils and police forces got stuffed with royal boot lickers who are almost universally corrupt or incompetent. It's a desperate move in order to hold on to power but their incompetence is staggering, particularly with the vote rigging they seem to be getting a taste for.

The whole Red Guard affair is ringing alarm bells for me though. If anything is going to be a Franz Ferdinand moment it would be some act of stupidity from the police as they try and hunt down someone. That or the rumours are true and the government tries and bans people from having guns.

Also if your looking to trade in Britain try hitting up the guys in Barry. Just get in contact with the local council and they should be able to smooth over everything.
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I've heard it's a lot worse in some areas in terms of the police. Like, I think there's an assumption by the royalist government that the countryside is natural Tory/LibDem ground, because they haven't really updated their politics since before the war. so they only need to concentrate on policing the cities. This itself is creating a problems though, because there's now a lot of overpolicing in those areas, and you're seeing a steady stream of bite casualties from "cleared buildings" which have not been properly cleared.

It's actually fascinating the extent that they have managed, mostly through a lot of Spanish and Junta aid, to rebuild the economy, but it hasn't really fixed things for anyone. People are better off but the state is still so chaotic and difficult that it's not really helping.

Edit: of course, whole areas of the countryside are also "yellow zones" IE "cleared but not safe.", because they're low key trying to set up strategic hamlets without anyone ever calling them strategic hamlets.
 
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