The sound of Nazi angst

[igenlode]

Watching "The Sound of Music", I realised with a wry smile that my gut reaction to the film was that the person I'd be interested in writing a fanfic about was Rolf. Because that's the conflict I can actually identify with -- the dilemma between wanting to impress his shiny new friends in the Nazi Party and wanting to impress the girl who thinks he's wonderful (and happens to be the daughter of the local lord of the manor, whilst without the Party he's a nobody). And the dilemma between obeying the Voice of Authority (and conscience), or doing his duty and pulling the trigger to kill a man for the first time in his life. He's used to doing what people like von Trapp tell him to do -- older, wiser, his social superiors. But now he doesn't have to any more, because he has higher orders. Only those orders aren't so easy to obey...

I was also left wondering uneasily what happened later to the nuns after the fugitives had been found on their premises, clearly with their connivance :-(

Comments

[erimia]

I haven't seen the musical, but I'm not surprised, it seems that many Nazi (and other kinds of far-right) characters have a potential for exploring such themes. I'm watching The Handmaid's Tale series now and one of the antagonists, Serena Joy, is easily one of the most interesting characters there precisely because of this conflict between conscience and duty, conscience and ideology, with a heavy dose of post-revolution angst when the character is discovering that what she fought for may be not that great after all.

[cosette_giry]

Have you read the sequel to the Handmaid's Tale (The Testaments), though? I think it might definitely interest you, then. :)

[erimia]

I'm definitely planning to! I heard it does some interesting things with Aunt Lydia character.