the pacific by hbo // emily wilson's introduction to the iliad // red river valley written by unknown // ophélie by constantin meunier // judas-redeemed // point defiance steps by cecilia blomberg // there's something inside the water by victor clemete
my most tinhat theory is that web was originally the focus character of why we fight:
web is noticeably more angry and caustic than we've seen him in any previous episode, even before they discover the camp. we see this when he snaps at Joe and yells at the retreating soldiers. he's disillusioned with the war, angry about the time he's lost to it, the death he's seen. his narration in the last patrol sets up these feelings as well:
His family, I'm sure, got a telegram from the War Department, saying he died a hero on an important mission that would help win the war. In fact, Eugene lost his life on a stretcher in a dank basement in Haguenau, crying out in agony, while his friends looked on helplessly. He was just one more casualty in a war that was supposed to be all but over.
They reuse this beat for Nix in the episode when he and Dick have their argument about dying a hero.
Nix: Cause I don’t know how to tell 'em that their kids never even made it out of the goddamn plane.
Winters: You tell em what you always tell em: their sons died as heroes.
Nixon: You really still believe that?
Winters: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Don’t you?
comparatively, nix’s gloom in this episode does not strike me as that much of a departure from usual (we’ve seen him tired/demoralized in bastogne/the last patrol, we’ve seen the alcoholism). his feelings are the result of a natural degradation while web’s shift is more drastic
nix and web’s beats in the episode are really similar (snapping at a friend, screaming meltdowns) and not in a way that adds any interesting dimension to the others’ story. almost like one existed and the other’s was written in later. while perconte has a similar arc, it’s different enough that it adds more interest to the episode. his conflict is with a replacement about their differing views of the war.
a lot of the characters who get bigger moments/are around in the background of shots more in the episode are characters who come up frequently in web’s book: speirs, janovec, luz, lieb, christenson
web’s monologue is the one that asks the central question of the episode: Dragging our asses half-way around the world, interrupting our lives. For what? You ignorant, servile scum! What the fսck are we doing here?
we see web have an angrier reaction than anybody else to the camp during his confrontation with the baker. he gets to ACT on his anger while nix...frowns at the germans? web’s scene is more dramatically satisfying. his question is answered, and he’s furious
he gets the better line at the end of episode: should've killed himself three years ago, saved us a lot of trouble which Nix only agrees with.
you can probably disprove some of these points, and I don't know if a script draft of why we fight exists and debunks all of this. while a Lieb version of why we fight would’ve been the best possible option, in my opinion a web one would’ve worked better than nix. web has more interesting writing in this episode, he's coming off being the narrator of the last, and it makes his betrayal of lieb in the final episode also a betrayal of the audience. it also would've made the webgott mini arc that exists in the back three episodes have a richer and more thematic throughline and this was a clearly a dynamic the writers were interested in. web is also a larger character in band of brothers (the book) and parachute infantry which would justify giving him the two episodes. I’ve seen it around that dick insisted on nix having a bigger role and perhaps this is the consequence
my favorite bits of web lore from parachute infantry:
he was a new deal democrat and voted for the first time during the war. “I had to walk almost 2 miles to cast my ballot, but I would have walked 10, if necessary, because this was my first vote—I was 22 in June—and I had always wanted to cast it for Roosevelt, the greatest president we had ever had, and the only one who ever gave the working man a break.”
he describes Doc Roe as having “a warm, brave heart.” has anybody ever considered webroe…? there’s about as much basis for it as webgott, historically speaking 💀
he seemed to have lone wolf tendencies. “Actually, I was quite happy to be on my own. Looking out for myself was something I always liked to do. It was the one thing I could do better than anybody else.” 
he was sooo dramatic. “I should have known better than to dream, for whatever dreams I might have had all ended when I was sixteen, and had run away to Gloucester to ship out on a fishing schooner. The schooners were diesel hulks, so I went back to school. That was the way my dreams always ended. The army was no different.”
noted fan of springtime. “It’s going to be an early spring, I thought, feeling a great relief. Maybe things will be better now; they are always better in the spring.”
believed in/was spooked by the stories of a ghost horse cart following them around the front. “It must be the ghost that’s followed us through Europe, I thought with a shiver, for the sound did not seem wholly real—who would have the nerve to walk a horse drawn wagon along the front in a city under such heavy artillery fire? …Some of the men used to speculate about it. They thought that it was the ghost of a supply cart that had gotten a direct hit, and that the driver was homesick for his old outfit. So every night he’d come back and visit his buddies on the line.” apparently Nixon also believed this… where my ghost story fics at?
allergic to change: “The essence of life is change, not stability, but I can’t get used to it; I want everything to stay the way it is.”
thinks the reason lieb is the way he is is because “he was from the far west.” he and joe actually have very little interaction at all and he doesn’t have much to say about him. Tom Hanks rpf is fine strikes again
was drunk on iced tea and gin all the time at the end of the war
gets so mad about doing a final parade when his points came through that he “was in a mood to bayonet babies and roast both colonels over small fires.” immediately after that says what he “planned for peacock was unprintable.” this is the final time peacock is mentioned… guess they never made up
he really hated the army and the Nazis in a way that I feel like the show dropped by the final episode. like I think the real web would’ve shot the guy on the mountain. but that’s a discussion I’d like to have later
anyway he was smart and funny and a good writer and so full of life and i’m very sad about what happened to him
As early as 1930 Schoenberg wrote: "Radio is an enemy, a ruthless enemy marching irresistibly forward, and any resistance is hopeless"; it "force-feeds us music . . . regardless of whether we want to hear it, or whether we can grasp it," with the result that music becomes just noise, a noise among other noises.
for the hbo wwii rewatch week five prompt: radios (with help from the war department's 1943 scr-300 technical manual)
ocean vuong in "eurydice" // lorde in "perfect places" // jeffrey eugenides in "the virgin suicides" // s. jane sloat in "in the voice of a minor saint" // sandy ward bell in "in zoey's head" // hari kunzru in "white tears" // neil hilborn in "our numbered days" // milan kundera in "ignorance"
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
germansingergirl
