 Hello everyone. I'm wearing a t-shirt with a picture of William Sherman on the front of it. The reasons why should become clear soon. Also, people are really into me just waving the knife. It's really just there so I have something to occupy my hand. Yeah, I don't have anything to like gesture to this time, but people are into it. Now, this video was originally only going to cover one book since I read it and I didn't really feel like finishing off the series, but some people convinced me to finish it and my opinions haven't changed much, but you know, I guess I am glad I got the whole picture because there's some there is a little bit of nuance here. And like I almost gave the last book in this series a little bit more credit for acknowledging that the heroes, please note the quotes around that, and their allies were awful people, but then it tries to equate both sides and it loses any self-awareness that it had gained. And so by the end, it's just as bad as the first part of the series, because this whole book series is terrible. Like it is basically just an attempt to make us like the protagonist and his allies, but at the same time, it's constantly showing us why they are awful, awful people. Like near the end, the main character does decide that he doesn't like some of his allies anymore. And he kind of fights against them, but neither he nor the books ever really acknowledge why they and their beliefs are bad and why their beliefs led to the conflict in the story. This won't make sense at first, but it should probably make sense later. It's like if somebody write a book where the villains were ISIS, you know, the Islamic State, and it condemns their actions, but it never really stopped and condemned their ideals and their beliefs that led them to do that sort of heinous stuff. Like again, that'll probably make sense later. Like I don't know that in this book series, the U.S. government is the villain and it's kind of difficult to make the U.S. government unambiguously the good guy in a story, but somehow this book series managed to pull it off. Like the only times in real history that's ever happened is the American Civil War and World War II. Like that's about it. Pretty much every other armed conflict that the U.S. government has been in, it's either been kind of a gray area, morally speaking, which most wars are, or it's just straight-up imperialist conquest. So today I'm talking about Divided We Fall, and Divided We Fall is a book series that takes place in the near future and it follows a civil war and the total collapse of the United States. It is told from the point of view of Danny Wright, a young National Guardsman who accidentally starts the war. And I'm just gonna say this now, on the front cover, a lot of times books will have a quote, a quote praising it, usually from another well-known author, and on the front of Divided We Fall it has a quote from Brad Thor saying it's great. Brad Thor is also the one person to ever give a positive review to True Allegiance by Ben Shapiro, which should tell you all you need to know about the quality of this book as well as its political leanings. Now, I'll say up front that Divided We Fall is a lot better than other crappy right-wing thrillers like True Allegiance and Trigger Warning. It has more self-awareness, so it's not as bad when it comes to pushing ideologies. I don't want to say it's more moderate because it's not, but it does have more self-awareness about it. And it is better written. It's still bad though. It still has its head lodged firmly up its own ass. The books are written by a guy named Trent Reedy, who is a former National Guardsman who did a tour of duty in Afghanistan, which is all fine, but he seems to be one of those guys who is a veteran and he's made that the crux of his entire freaking personality. Like it just constantly comes up all the time, no matter what the subject is. You know, like those people annoy me. Any other veterans in the comments, please back me up on this. Those people are annoying. He also writes for the Washington Examiner, which is a rag. Like I refuse to even call it a newspaper. It's just a rag. He also wrote a book called Gamer Army, which I haven't read, but the cover is a bit of a meme. Take a moment to examine it and have a chuckle at its expense. I'll say right now, the issue with Divided We Fall isn't that I disagree with the politics in it. Now for starters, I only disagree with like 70 to 80 percent of it. You know, there's plenty of parts in here where characters were complaining about something or the book was clearly trying to push a message and I was kind of agreeing with it or at the very least I didn't agree with it, but I saw where they were coming from. Like, you know, the federal ID law that is brought up in this series. Yeah, I don't like that either. I think it's fair for the characters to be against it. Or when they're talking about gun control at a couple of points, I was like, yeah, I kind of hate some of that shit too. So, you know, I don't disagree with everything here. And plus, I also distrust law enforcement implicitly, just like the books do. However, this series really only distrusts federal law enforcements. Other cops are just paragons of virtue all the time with one exception. Like there is one cop who becomes a bad guy in the final book, but he's no longer a cop by the time he becomes a bad guy. So I don't know if that really counts. And on top of that, I am capable of reading a book series, which is, you know, pushing a message I disagree with and still enjoying it. You know, one of my favorite book series I read last year was The Empire of Man series. And that was great. It also has a lot of long screeds about how monarchy is the best form of government. You know, like, I obviously don't agree with that. But number one, it feels like the authors of those books actually thought it through. And like, I could actually talk to them a little bit. They aren't just half formed, self contradicting ideas. And number two, outside of that, the rest of the books are still pretty good. And the thing is, with divided we fall, even if you set the politics aside, it's not really that good. But the main reason that the story and everything is bad is because the politics are forcing it into a certain shape. Like, imagine the story of the book, you know, everything that makes it good, the plot, characters, themes, whatever. Imagine all that as water. And the politics are like a glass that it's being poured into. The water is going to be forced to take the shape of that glass. So like, if the politics of this series weren't so obnoxious, then it would probably be a lot better. Like, for example, at the start, Danny, the main character, could easily be a good likable protagonist, or at least become one over the course of the story. However, over the course of the story, instead of becoming likable, he murders a lot of people and starts working alongside actual neo-Nazis. I don't know, it really is a shame, because this book series starts off great. Like, the story is great at the beginning, and it could go down a hundred equally interesting paths. Like, there's a lot of moments, like small moments, but there's a lot of them spread throughout the books where they shine. And the characters almost develop in an interesting way, or it almost makes a really interesting point about the real world. And I'll admit that there are one or two small moments where, like, yeah, it does say something kind of profound, but like, there's just so many moments where it almost works, it almost does something, but it just fails at the finish line. You know, it just doesn't quite work. And Divided We Fall is definitely pushing some right-wing beliefs, at least sometimes, but it also seems really, really confused on what it wants to say. Like, we'll get more into that as the video goes on, but it's just kind of confused and contradicts itself, or seems to contradict itself at times. Like, the war goes horribly, so it seems like it's saying, yeah, this whole situation is awful and it would be a shit show, and maybe the characters shouldn't have done the things that led to this. But at the same time, the rebels are victorious in the end, so the quote-unquote heroes get exactly what they were working for. You know, Danny feels bad for some of the things that he does, and so the story seems to be portraying them as bad, but then he just keeps doing them. And when the rebels do something awful, it's just them being forced into a difficult spot and they feel bad about it, most of the time. There are some exceptions. But when the feds do something awful, it's because they're pure evil and they have to be stopped. You know, like, no one in the narrative points out all these contradictions, and so it's just kind of a muddled mess for a lot of reasons, but I don't know. All that said, we'll get into this, and I'm mostly gonna focus on, like, its failures as a story, but again, a lot of the reasons it fails as a story is because of the weird way that the politics are done. Like, not even necessarily bad or obnoxious, just really, really weird. Well, okay, it is bad, but really weird, mostly. From here on out, there will be spoilers for the whole thing, just so you're aware. Now, before we go crazy, I do want to point out some positives, because like I said, there are some good things in these books. The first book starts off really, really strong. Like, by the end of the first chapter, the protagonist is already heading to the protest where the inciting incident happens, and then the incident happens, and like, things get rolling really quick. Like, the beginning of the story is really strong, and I wanted to know what happened. Book two also has a great start, but I wasn't quite as into it as book one. There's a lot of scenes throughout the series where it's just a bunch of soldiers hanging out, waiting for stuff to happen, or taking care of menial labor, and those scenes felt very real. You know, it felt like a bunch of friends that were forced into a scary slash boring situation together, and that one felt like the author was drawing on his real world experience for it, so those scenes were all great. The action scenes in this series, there's a lot of them because again, it's about a war. The action scenes are kind of meh, but the actual build up to them and the tension leading up to them is great. So, I don't know, Trent Reedy might be a little bit better suited to writing a thriller than an action story, but hey, either way, there's a lot of cutaways in this, because most of it's told from Danny's first person POV, but there's a lot of cutaways to like internet comments and snippets from news shows and radio broadcasts and stuff, and I really really liked those. It gave some much needed perspective on the world coming from people other than Danny, and it did sometimes give the author a chance to poke fun at real world stuff or otherwise criticize real world stuff, like there are news shows which are clearly based on real ones, you know, like there's The O'Malley Factor, which is pretty clearly an XB of The O'Reilly Factor, there's Another Show, which is meant to be an XB for like the Daily Show, you know, stuff like that. I listened to this entire series as audiobooks, and the audiobooks are very, very well produced, you know. They got multiple actors for different characters and the news reports. They, normally I'm not into having music and sound effects in books, or audiobooks, I mean, because at that point it feels more like a radio show, and I feel like that's a different thing, but in the case of like having the news reports and everything where we're supposed to be seeing footage of a war, I think it works out okay there, and there are a few characters throughout the series that point out that Danny is awful, you know, they never do it with the proper vitriol, but you know, again, there's at least some people that are pointing out that, yeah, dude, you kind of suck, so that's good, you know, I mean, but again, they mostly frame it as like, hey man, your actions have had unintended consequences instead of, hey man, your actions were awful on their own. But yeah, that's about it for all the stuff I liked. So now for the summary, I suppose. What not to say to a policeman. My sister would like you, she loves a man in uniform, and she's a racist. So we start by introducing our main character, Danny Wright. He is 17 years old, he lives in a small town called Freedom Lake in the state of Idaho. He recently joined the National Guard and finished his basic training, and he's just about to start his senior year in high school. Now, while this was happening, the federal government recently passed a law giving everyone a federal ID with like their important identifying information, which sounds fine, but then you realize the ID also has a tracker in it, so the government always knows where you are, and I mean, that's not good, but also we carry trackers in our pockets all the time anyways, so maybe it's not as big a deal as they're thinking. Now, the Idaho government recently also passed a bill unknowing that law, which is not how the law works. Federal government is above state government, but whatever. And there are big protests going on in the state capital, Boise, and they are getting destructive, and the National Guard is sent in to keep the peace, and these protests are for a lot of different things. You know, there's people that are pro the law, anti the law, people that are protesting because the economy is falling apart, and just things like that. Now, Danny being in the National Guard is one of the soldiers that's sent to keep the peace, and they soldiers have their gas masks on because they're anticipating maybe having to use tear gas on the protesters, and things really start to get out of hand, someone throws a rock at Danny, it hits him in the mask, and his gun goes off by mistake, and then the crowd and the other soldiers panic, and so the other soldiers start shooting, and there's people in the crowd who are also armed that shoot a little bit, and by the end, several people are dead and many more are wounded. The governor of Idaho, a guy named Governor Montaigne, his full name is James Montaigne, which upsets me slightly even though James is a very common name, and Governor Montaigne refuses to name the soldiers who started the shooting. Like, he's keeping their identity secret, and he's also refusing to allow the federal government to investigate the killings and figure out what happened. He just kind of says, yeah, they were following my orders, so they're innocent. You can't punish soldiers for just following orders. This goes back and forth a couple of times, and things escalate. Eventually, the governor shuts down the Idaho border to the feds, which is not allowed, and then later the federal government comes in with the military and some police forces, and they blockade Idaho with the army. Like, because before the Idaho government was letting people move back and forth a little bit, but now the federal government comes in and says, nope, you can leave, but no one's coming in. While this is going on, Danny evades arrest a couple of times because the feds do find out who him and the other soldiers are, and he continues trying to live a regular life, which includes playing in football games and going to rodeos while a blockade is happening, which is strange. And one of his friends, who owns an auto shop, his name is Schmitty, Schmitty builds him a secret bunker under his auto shop just in case he needs it. Also, Danny has a girlfriend named Jobell, and at first when she hears about the people being killed at the protest, she's really pissed, but then when she finds out that Danny was one of the people that was there and he accidentally started it, she's suddenly fine with everything, Danny is torn on his loyalties while this is happening because he feels like, oh, I swore an oath to the Constitution, and I love my country, but also the governor is telling me what to do, and he's protecting me because they think Danny and the others are just going to get locked up forever without a trial or anything, and they base this on nothing, but that's what they think. And when the Idaho blockade is set up, Danny is a little torn on it, but then when the feds set up their own blockade, suddenly he decides to throw in his lot with the governor and the Idaho National Guard, he very quickly changes his mind. But when the blockade goes up, his mom is actually working out of state, so she is now trapped out there and can't get back in, so she says she wants to sneak in to see her son and so she can go back to work. And so Danny and some of his friends actually go out to get her, but they get caught, and a soldier tries to arrest Danny, but Danny murders him, and let's be clear, that's what it is. Like the soldier is trying to arrest him and make sure the situation ends without violence, and then Danny just shoots him. Like there's no self-defense claim to be made here, like legally and morally, he murders that guy. And then they go on a high-speed chase where some soldiers are shooting at them and they shoot back at the soldiers. And they do make it back to Idaho, however his mom gets shot along the way and she does die. And Danny gets mad because it's totally not his fault. At no point does anyone acknowledge that this is 100% on him, but whatever. And Danny gets demoted for lying about the reason he requested leave, but the governor can't arrest him because he's too popular. He's known as the guy who started all this, and people see him as like standing up to the government or whatever. And the first book ends with the president being assassinated, and then the military just straight up says, okay, we are straight up going to invade Idaho, so they cut off comms, they cut off power, they cut off internet, and then the army's coming in. And then book two, which is called Burning Nation, begins with Danny and the Idaho National Guard getting very quickly and very easily overrun by the military. Like it's kind of impressive and kind of sad how easy they are to beat. So Danny and some others flee to the hidden bunker under his friend Schmidt's auto shop, and they hide out there for several weeks while their friends are bringing them supplies and some information about the outside world, and they tell them that the US military has occupied Freedom Lake, but that's the town they live in. And later Montaigne actually sends out a message, like he formerly governor Montaigne, now president Montaigne, because Idaho has declared independence. The US military has managed to take over the northern part of the state, but somehow Montaigne was able to take over an air force base in the south without a fight and steal their entire arsenal. So now they have air power and anti air defenses, even though they should not be able to manufacture the parts necessary to maintain all those complex machines, and they also shouldn't have enough fuel, and they also really shouldn't be able to manufacture ammunition or anything. I want you to meet the United States's 114th Fighter Wing, which usually tries to avoid being grounded. For every one hour spent flying one of their F-16s, 33 man hours go into maintenance. For a complex weapons system like that, unless your country can produce all of its components for maintenance, it is not a smart idea to turn on the seller's conditions. So the southern part of Idaho is still unoccupied by the US, and he tells the people in the north to rise up. And I don't know, part of me feels like that should be the other way around. You know, I feel like the northern part of Idaho is more defensible and better terrain for insurgents, because it's basically just forests and mountains with very few people, but whatever. So at that, Danny and his friends decide they're gonna be guerrilla fighters now. And throughout the book, they participate in a bunch of attacks on American forces. This includes blowing up a tunnel while a convoy is driving through it, burying some soldiers alive, and burning some others to death. This is described in explicit detail, like Danny sees soldiers crawling around and screaming while they are on fire. They also set a house on fire, and when some soldiers come to, you know, put out the flames, they start shooting at them. And also one of his friends, a guy named Cal, butchers a couple of soldiers with a sword. They also create an IED out of some C4 and barbed wire, and they set it off in a crowd of soldiers, which are also in the middle of town, and civilians could easily be nearby. And I just want to point out that before some of this, Danny specifically noticed that some of the soldiers are really young and don't really want to be there. And we're also supposed to think that Danny is the hero here. Like, we're supposed to think that the rebels are the good guys in this situation. Now the leader of the occupation in the Freedom Lake area is a guy named Major Frederico Alsavar. After the barbed wire bomb, Danny gets caught by Alsavar. And Alsavar actually tortures him for 19 days, including sleep deprivation and waterboarding. But his friends, aided by a militia called the Brotherhood of the White Eagle, attack the U.S. installation where he's being held and they manage to free him. Now he meets back with his friends and the local sheriff. His name is Sheriff Crowe, and he was briefly in Book One, but it was pretty touch-and-go, which is why I didn't mention him. And now he's going by General Crowe because he's a general in the Brotherhood. He claims that they are a secret organization that infiltrated government and law enforcement, and then they prepare for a little bit, and then they launch a really big attack, and to kick off the attack, Danny broadcasts a propaganda message across the internet. Now they manage to kill several hundred people, and then they kick the- they force the U.S. out of their area. During the battle, Danny personally fights and beats Alsavar and decides not to kill him. Like, they literally do that stupid movie thing where the enemy is on the ground, can barely move, he's already slowly dying, and then the hero lifts up a weapon, which in this case is a big rock, and then he- it looks like he's about to kill him with it, but he drops it on the ground next to his head instead. Like, it literally does that. It's so stupid. But not to fear because his friend Cal comes over and butchers Alsavar with a sword. After all of this, several other states, including Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and Oklahoma, also declare independence. And the last part of the book is several collaborators being hanged in public by the Brotherhood while the population of Freedom Lake looks on and cheers. And the collaborators happen to be a bar owner who ratted Danny out and resulted in him getting captured, which- I mean, that's not nice, but it does make sense to refer to that person as a collaborator, and also a U.S. soldier who was acting as a double agent and who actually rescued Danny. Like, he- he gave information to Brotherhood and allowed them to attack and rescue him. Not sure why they'd hang him, but they do. Finally, we reach Book Three, which is called The Last Full Measure, which is specifically a reference to a line in the Gettysburg Address. Like, the book itself acknowledges that. It starts off a lot slower than the first two. Like, basically, it's a couple months later, and Danny has been going on a propaganda tour through the rebellious territories. And he feels somewhat unsure about everything, but that doesn't stop him from talking about how awesome the rebellion is, even though, again, they're just murdering a ton of people. But things don't stay slow for long because two nuclear warheads get stolen by rebels, and they get set off in New York and Washington, D.C. The president lives, but most of the government gets wiped out, and the rest retreats to NORAD, and Colorado Springs becomes the new capital of the country, which- uh, as somebody who lives in Colorado Springs, it is a little strange to imagine this glorified parking lot being the capital of anywhere. But sure, that does make sense. NORAD's right nearby. But because literally millions of civilians have been killed in this attack, the U.S. military finally just takes the gloves off and bombs the fuck out of Boise, while Danny and his girlfriend Jobelle are there, and they flee. And Danny goes home, and he sees that things have been peaceful in Freedom Lake, but they've gotten a lot worse at the same time. I should also mention that while all this is going on, the forces of Idaho have also invaded eastern Washington state. So, you know, despite all their claims that they just want to be left alone and they just want to be independent, they're also invading other places and taking them over, just, you know, just throwing that out there. There are major food shortages in Freedom Lake, and everything is rationed by the Brotherhood, like the- the Idaho military and the official government aren't anywhere to be seen, but the Brotherhood is allied with them. And the Brotherhood also happens to disappear dissenters, like anyone who complains winds up disappearing, or they just get accused of being collaborators and then they get, you know, executed. They're also starving the non-white population, or when I say non-white population of the town, it's a small town in Idaho. There's like 12 people there who aren't white, but you know, that the Brotherhood is starving them out. And it takes Danny until now, like almost an entire book after he met them, to realize that the Brotherhood is a neo-Nazi organization. Like, again, they're an anti-government militia in Idaho called the Brotherhood of the White Eagle, and somehow he didn't figure it out until now. Some people are really fucking stupid. Now, the Brotherhood actually accuses Danny's old teacher, Mr. Shiratori, of being a collaborator, and again, this is very clearly just because he's not white, he's Japanese, and he decides to join up with some people who are planning on fleeing the town and going into the wilderness to wade out the rest of the war. And Danny tries to trick his friend, Cal, into helping because Cal is, by this point, a member of the Brotherhood, a very enthusiastic member of the Brotherhood, and then one of their friends' parents are murdered, like they just get lynched in the middle of the night by the Brotherhood, and presumably because they're Latino. Seeing this, Cal becomes disillusioned with the Brotherhood, and they all flee. They shoot their way out of town, they drive across Idaho, get into a few more fights along the way, and eventually they reach an abandoned school where they plan to go. And they get things set up, and they just have a self-sufficient little town soon enough. But months later, they come across a secret Brotherhood slave camp. See, it's like a farm, or a plantation might be a better word for it, where they're growing food, and a lot of the dissenters who have been disappeared have been sent here for slave labor, along with the Black, Asian, and Latino populations. There's no mention of American Indians in here, despite there actually being more American Indians in Idaho than Black people, but whatever. Or at least the men are being used for forced labor, the women are being used as sex slaves. So in other words, a bunch of right-wing extremists rebelled against the U.S. government, the democratically elected U.S. government, because they wanted to have slaves. How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man? So Danny and Company decide that they want to attack the camp and they want to free the slaves, and they do it, and they succeed, but during the fighting, Jobelle is shot and she dies. And then Danny is a sad boy for several months, and they realize, like, okay, we attacked the Brotherhood's encampment, they're going to search around here, they're going to come for us, and they will probably find us and hit us in force soon. So Danny decides to go to Boise and ask President Montaigne for help. You know, they're going to ask him for help fighting against his own allies, because obviously there's no way he would know that his allies are neo-Nazis. Again, like, at this point, it's common knowledge in the book's universe that there are neo-Nazis fighting on the side of Idaho, and again, Brotherhood of the White Eagle, the name should give it away, but Danny is somehow convinced that Montaigne doesn't know that the Brotherhood is evil and he wouldn't know about the slave camps, and he would be, oh, horrified, and he would obviously help them out. So they drive all the way out to Boise and he tries to get Montaigne to agree to a ceasefire and stop the Brotherhood, but he refuses. And again, I should mention, a ceasefire with the US government. He's trying to get, like, all the different factions to stop fighting. But then Danny and his friends who he's with hijack a radio station and they broadcast a call for a ceasefire, and every government agrees. Yeah, like, by this point, there are, like, 13 or 14 different countries, because various other states have declared independence. But yeah, they all agree to it, as well as most militias and gangs. They all agree to the ceasefire just because Danny asks them to. And then they all sign a peace deal, the new countries gain independence, and then Danny is a sad boy. Peace is mostly achieved. Like, they mentioned there is some small-scale sporadic fighting still going on. And then things end. Like, there's not really a climax here. It just, it just ends. But yeah, relatively simple plot, all things considered, but I just am bringing all of that up because I feel that the details are important here. There are a lot of smaller scenes with Danny being conflicted over who he should be loyal to. He has a few fights. He argues with his girlfriend. He discusses legal issues with Mr. Shiratori, his civics teacher. But the big events aren't that hard to follow. There's also a love triangle in book two, but it's fucking stupid and we're ignoring it. Rejected first lines for the new Harry Potter book. Finishing in the cafeteria, Harry and Rowan toned their wands on themselves. So the thing about Divide a Befall is that Danny is a villain, but the story doesn't want to acknowledge that. Like, the story starts off with him accidentally killing someone and kicking off a fight which killed even more people. Now, is it his fault? Not really. Like, again, someone threw a rock at him and it just, he accidentally fired his gun. Did he commit a crime? Debatable, but I really don't think a jury would convict him. Like, there's just so much gray area here. But the thing is people are dead. Like, the government wants to know what happened and the public wants to know what happened. But at the same time, Danny, the other squad members, and Governor Montaigne will not submit to an investigation or go to trial. And like, if you were, ask yourself, if you were just a person and this happened, how would that look? You know, like, you don't have access to the inside of Danny's head. Remember, if this was a real event, you wouldn't. But how would that look? They would look guilty. Whatever happened, there needs to be some sort of process to get to the bottom of it and figure out what happened and if any crimes were committed, then to punish the perpetrators. But Danny and company won't do that. They think they are above the law. And yet the feds, who are just trying to apprehend possible murderers, are all just shown to be faceless bad guys. Like, whenever cops like FBI agents or whoever come to arrest them or come to, you know, attack them or anything, they're just faceless bad guys. None of them even get a name or anything. And that continues for the whole series. Like, the feds mostly act in a pretty reasonable manner, but the books want us to side against them. You know, like later, Danny's name, in the first book, Danny's name gets leaked to the press and journalists will start hounding him and his friends. And all those evil journalists are asking him annoying questions, like, why did you kill those people? You know, can you believe it? What annoying jackasses. The villains aren't the armed men who killed several American protesters. It's the reporters trying to figure out what's going on. They're the real villains here. Danny and his friends actually assault reporters multiple times. And the cops try their best to prevent them from reporting, which seems to violate freedom of the press, but okay, you know, like just the whole book, Danny and the other characters and the book itself just has this attitude of, if those damn journalists weren't here, I would never have to face consequences for my actions, which is just so up its own ass. I'm honestly kind of impressed. And then later in the series, Danny is revealed to just be a complete dumbass. Like, again, he meets the brotherhood of the White Eagle and he can't immediately figure out who they are. Like, granted, he does think, oh that sounds like a neo-Nazi organization, but then sheriff slash general Crow tells him, no, no, no, we're not neo-Nazis, but again, why would you believe him? Like, you're in Idaho. That is a state where a measurable percentage of the population are open white supremacists. And even before this point, there is a part in the second book where Shiratori tells Danny that Nazis are coming from all over to fight for Idaho in the war. Like, it's not just they had a pretty big population of those folks before the war started, like they're coming in from other places to fight on behalf of Idaho and Danny still can't figure it out. But again, when Crow comes to Danny and says, no, no, we're not Nazis. In fact, we actually protected a family from a group of neo-Nazis just the other day. So there, and like Danny, Danny believes him. Like, the brotherhood is trying to hide their beliefs. They aren't just coming out and saying, depth to minorities, which I'm going to be real with you. Those types of people don't hide their beliefs if they feel comfortable. Like, they think that everyone secretly agrees with them and we're only hiding because we're afraid of social backlash. Like, when they think the opportunity arises, they really don't hide anything. Now, this could have been an interesting character arc. Like, this could be showing how Danny hates the federal government so much that he gets radicalized into right-wing extremism. Like, hell, the characters even refer to the war as a conservative revolution a bunch of times. Like, it's not subtle what their political leanings are. But instead, Danny is just so dumb that he doesn't realize who the people he's allied himself with are. And it's treated like a twist in the story, you know? And on top of that, Danny feels like someone tried to cram all the stereotypical small-town hero clichés into a single person, and it really doesn't work. He is a soldier fighting for freedom. When he's not working at the auto repair shop founded by his father, he's caring for his mentally ill mother and playing on his school's football team, where he scores winning touchdowns. On the side, he's a competitor in rodeos and makes such sweet love to his girlfriend that she gives up on all her left-leaning beliefs. Sometimes he gets into fistfights, but he's basically a champion boxer, too. And he never forgets to pray before going to war. This guy is 17 years old, and I didn't make any of this up. Like, again, this is all mostly in the first book, too. Like, I could believe most of this stuff if he was in, like, his mid-20s. But even then, he would have Barbie syndrome. The idea of a teenager having all of this and having done all of this is just ridiculous. We also can't forget that Danny is big. Like, again, he's a football player, so he's a big guy. We don't get an exact description. I imagine he's about as big as Brett Hawthorne, but not quite as big as Jake Rivers. No one is as big as Jake Rivers. But I don't know, like, this whole thing just feels like how a lot of rural American men see themselves, you know? And again, his town is literally called Freedom Lake because, you know, subtleties for cowards. And while the books and some characters in the books do criticize Danny a little bit, they never really lay into him the way that he deserves. You know, it's like, it's like he has plot armor, but just for his morality and just for the way people view him. Like, again, at the end of book one, a soldier has Danny at gunpoint. He tries to arrest him when he goes off to try and smuggle his mom into Idaho. And things don't have to get violent. All Danny has to do is surrender and maybe he goes to prison, but no one has to die. And Danny just shoots this guy. Like, again, there's no self-defense claim to be made, but oh, it's totally fine according to the books. And during the chase, he and his friends, again, they're shooting at soldiers and the soldiers shoot back. But only one of them is wounded. Only one soldier that Danny shoots is wounded. No one dies. So it's trying to make us think that his actions aren't that bad, even though later on he burns a bunch of soldiers alive and he helps neo-Nazis and other unsavory types run wild all over the country. You know, other than that, he does nothing wrong. I don't really have a good place to put this, but I want to point out that the governor is blatantly lying about what happened at the protests in the first book. You know, like more bullets were fired at the protests than the National Guard admits. Like, they fired 21 shots, but officially only eight bullets are missing from their guns. And Danny never stops to acknowledge that this is suspicious. You know, he never stops and says, you know, maybe some of the other guys in my squad were doing something they shouldn't have and maybe the feds are right to punish them for possibly murdering people or at least investigate and see what's going on. And at the same time, Danny just feels conflicted for a big chunk of the first book. You know, like when the Idaho border is shut by the governor, which results in shortages and escalates the situation and prevents people from coming home, he's conflicted. But then later he is convinced to fight the fed and what convinces him? Two things. First, the feds blockade the border and Danny and the governor whine for a bit that that's not fair. So then he's suddenly just full on Idaho's side. It's very abrupt, like I said earlier. And again, it's just the exact same thing. But it's not fair. It's just so fucking dumb and childish. And the second reason that he becomes like full force, he will fight the fed the rest of the series, is that the army kills his mom. And under different circumstances, that might make sense. But in this, no, Danny killed his mom. It's his fault she died. But no one points this out to him. Like if the author wanted us to feel some sympathy, then he should have had the army be in the wrong while killing her. You know, again, like they're trying to apprehend a wanted fugitive who just killed one of their friends. And when they're chasing him, they hit Danny and his friends start shooting at them. So they shoot back. Like, it's not their fault. It's Danny's fault. But you know, if the army was in the wrong while killing his mom, then maybe we could have felt more sympathy for her. Like, you know, she works at a medical clinic. Like, what if she worked there and the military mistakenly thought it was an Afghani wedding, so they blew it up with a predator drone and killed everyone inside? Like, that would be a reason to make us sympathetic toward Danny and his mom. But that's the thing that the US military has actually done. And it might force the audience to put themselves into the shoes of real people who have actually suffered something, something focalt boomerang. And that would actually make the feds look worse. But we're not supposed to sympathize with real people and acknowledge how maybe some of these characters are like real people. We're supposed to sympathize with these characters because I don't know, they're right-wingers and they don't like the federal government. Like, that's the reason we're supposed to sympathize with them, not because the government has actually done anything wrong. And in book two Danny does get tortured for a while, and the torture is pretty bad, pretty intense, but this is after he's already chosen his side, so it's not really an excuse for him to hate the feds and fight against them. Like, if they did this before he had chosen a side then it would make sense, but here it's not really, it doesn't work as motivation. Not to mention that he's not innocent. Like, at this point he has killed a ton of soldiers and while torture is bad, both for practical reasons and moral reasons, it's hard to feel sympathy for somebody who's this awful. You know, Major Alcivar straight up points out that Danny killed one of his friends in the last attack before he's captured. Like, they have very real reason to hate this guy. And then later Danny kicks the army out of his state, which I'm calling bullshit on that, like, for a lot of reasons, but the main reason is that these are the same people who, when COVID came and everything shut down, they couldn't handle not going to Applebee's for two weeks. Like, these people are not going to fight in a fucking guerrilla war. That's not happening. But anyways, the issue with all of this isn't that Danny and the other heroes are bad people. And the issue isn't that they're hypocritical either, and we'll more on that later. The issue is that the book doesn't acknowledge that they're bad people. You know, there are plenty of good stories out there across all types of media that are about horrible people. You know, villain protagonists are a thing, and they can work really well. Stuff like the Sopranos, Prince of Thorns, Memento, Death Note, the Darth Bane trilogy. Like, these are all stories that are about horrible human beings. And none of them make excuses for the protagonists. Like, they're awful people, but they are fascinating people. And if this book series wanted Danny to be a villain protagonist, then they needed to embrace it and stop justifying his actions, and stop trying to make him look like a boy scout. You know, like, imagine if the books were about him and the others trying to cover up their actions in Boise. Like they realize, oh, we screwed up, and if we get caught, we're going to prison. So let's frustrate the investigation and try and make sure that no one catches us. Or imagine if the book was about the investigation and the trial. You know, basically saying, were Danny's actions in the purview of his orders, and or were his orders lawful? That that could be a very interesting book. Or imagine if Danny was just being used as a pawn by Governor Montaigne, which Governor Montaigne is painted as like totally altruistic and nice throughout the whole series. So that's definitely not what's going on here. Or imagine if Danny realizes that Montaigne and company were evil way sooner, and he began a different militia fighting against both them and the American government. Or imagine if the books ended with the American government winning and Danny realizing that all of the fighting was for nothing. These are a lot of interesting directions that it could go. But otherwise, if you're not going to do that, you have to make Danny less awful. You have to make him more or less regretful. You can't have him murder that soldier at the end of book one. Because at that point, it's not even like, oh, this is war and this is what happens. Like, he just murders that guy. I want to hammer that home. He just murders someone and we're supposed to be okay with him doing that. He has to not instantly decide that feds are evil because they do the same thing the governor already did, and he has to not side with Nazis. Like, you have to do all of that to make Danny less of an awful human being if you don't want him to be a straight up villain protagonist. Like, the story as it is now, though, it needed a villain protagonist in order to showcase, you know, what a shit show the situation is. And in order to do that, you have to acknowledge that the protagonist is a horrible person. Like, you can't try and whitewash their actions. Instead, we get a villain protagonist who the books try to pretend is morally gray. Like, they try to paint some of his actions, like again, when he burns a bunch of soldiers alive in a tunnel as, well, it's war. That's just the sort of thing that happens. He had no choice. He was forced into it and he feels bad about it as opposed to just, you know, being a horrible shitty thing where he kills a bunch of people in a very brutal manner because the author didn't want a villain protagonist. He wanted to show off that the heroes are all well-meaning and only do bad things when they're forced to. At the end of book three, Danny just comes right out and says this. You know, he gives a monologue explaining how the conflict started. Like he says, both sides are to blame. You know, he tries to liken it to like a scale. And he says, well, if one side does one thing and tips the scale and the other side has to do something to tip the scale, you know, they're obsessed with getting even instead of fixing problems. But the problem is that Danny and his side did everything. You know, Danny, you killed the protesters. You tried to cover it up. You started the blockade. You killed American soldiers, which is what kicked off the war in earnest. You assassinated the president. You nuked two cities. You allowed Nazis to run rampant and you murdered people you saw as collaborators. There is not a single point where the federal government or anyone allied with them does anything really violent except in self-defense. Like, I hate siding with the American federal government so completely. Like, it goes against every fiber of my being. But this book gives me no choice. And that in a nutshell is really what makes this series so awful. Like, it's completely incapable of just saying that the far right is responsible for all the death and destruction. Like, it has to say, like, well, both sides are to blame here, you know? So even when condemning the far right, which it kind of does, it only sort of condemns them and it has to couch it in, well, actually, the other people are bad too. White supremacy. What kind of a fucking position is that? I want to live in a world where white people reign supreme. You already do. You stupid cunt. The best way to describe the rebels in this book series is that they're all a bunch of fucking crybullies. Like, like I just said, they start the war, they escalate the fighting multiple times, and they murder literally millions of civilians. And yet the entire time they are crying out and acting like they are the poor oppressed victims who were forced into this, you know? Like, the hypocrisy and the double think of this series are evident from very, very early on. You know? Like, one of Danny's friends in the National Guard, as they're first going to quell the protests, like right at the beginning of book one, he gets mad at the protesters and says he wants to kick their asses because some of them have signs that are, like, perceived as anti-military. And they say they want to end the war in Iran because the US is at war with Iran at the beginning of the series. And he says he wants to kick their asses because how dare you criticize soldiers we fight for your freedom of speech. Like, it's clear he doesn't care about that, and he just wants to violently put down all the speech that he doesn't like. But the books never call him or anyone else who holds that view out. Like, the books never call him out, the characters never call him out. And similarly, the Idaho government and other people refusing to do what the federal government says is heroic and brave and the smart right thing to do. But regular people refusing to do what the Idaho government says are all portrayed as violent and insane. Like, the protesters at the beginning are described as dirty, drunk, stupid, and unsure what they're even mad about. You know, the protesters that they killed? Totally justified. Like, no need to even look into it further, just we did it, therefore it's fine. But the feds who try to arrest Danny later? Evil incarnate. Partway through the first book, some FBI agents actually come to Danny's school to arrest him, and that's when he realizes like, oh, okay, they know who I am. And so he flees in a car along with some of his friends, and the cops actually stop him at a barricade and he's like, well, I guess I'm caught. But then they arrest the FBI agents instead. Because this is when we first meet Sheriff Crow and we learned that Crow actually knew Danny's dad. Therefore, he's above the law. Also, this is very blatant plot armor. We'll talk about that a bit more later, but like, this is just plot armor because it comes out of nowhere and gets the heroes out of trouble. And when Danny kills the soldier who's arresting him in Spokane, that could have been a great way to make Danny sympathize with the dead protesters from earlier, you know, because there's an armed man pointing a gun at him and says he doesn't want to hurt him or his friends, but he easily could if he really wanted to. And so, you know, the stress of the situation is high, and Danny lashes out. You know, he's thinking, okay, better him than me. And that's probably what the protesters were thinking at the beginning. And if this book had a proper level of self-awareness, it would probably acknowledge that. Like, Danny has now been on both sides of this sort of situation, so he should sympathize with both sides. But no, like, law enforcement is good when it's on Danny's side and it's bad when it's not on his side. Like, it's just, it's very, very blatant. You know, Danny and the other soldiers not going to trial, not submitting to an investigation, not even identifying themselves. Like, it's a very blatant example of the rules not applying equally. And when that sort of thing happens, the government starts to lose legitimacy in the eyes of the population. Like, the justice system has many, many flaws, don't get me wrong. But it says that when someone is accused of a crime, they all are entitled to a fair trial. But Danny and company are refusing to even let a trial happen. Like, they're declaring that they're innocent without even looking things over. Like, Governor Montaigne is essentially saying, I'm in charge, I decide who gets in trouble, fuck what the law says. So like, Danny and all the others see themselves as being different and special. And then later, they hate American soldiers for killing their friends, but they are also killing soldiers and killing civilians the whole time. But like, not one of them stops and says, you know what, maybe, maybe they're kind of exactly the same as us. Danny and other people in Idaho claim that they just want to be left alone and they just want to be independent, but they also invade and annex eastern Washington. And it's straight up said in the third book that they are stealing food and letting people they're starved so that they can feed themselves. Like, even if we accept that Idaho is independent by that stage, then that means they just invaded the United States. Like, of course, they're going to keep bombing you if you do that. We hear plenty about how some of the leaders of the new countries and at one point even the United States seems to turn into a military dictatorship. We hear about how they're all dictators and how horrible it is, but Montaigne is only ever shown to be altruistic and working for the good of Idaho and he truly cares about the people there. And when the nuclear bombs go off and again kill millions of people in New York and Washington, the story tries to make it clear that Idaho had nothing to do with it because Idaho are the good guys. They would never do anything like that. And I'll be real with you, I don't believe that. Like, the author could come here and tell me himself that, no, Idaho had nothing to do with it. I wouldn't fucking believe him. Like, there's just so much effort being put in here trying to make the heroes look heroic when they are just very blatantly not. And I also want to point out that when the president gets assassinated at the end of book one, Danny tries to claim that the shooter was just a lone wolf. Like, yeah, he's just a crazy lone wolf has nothing to do with us. But the fact that he espouses all the same beliefs as Danny and Governor Montaigne, well, that's that's just pure coincidence. You know, like I said, this is like if somebody tried to condemn ISIS without actually condemning their beliefs. And these books condemn racism wholeheartedly. Well, I can't even say they condemn racism wholeheartedly. Like, it pretends to wholeheartedly declare racism. Like, really, it is bad or it condemns slavery and ethnic cleansing. Like it says, those are bad. But it seems okay with racism, to be honest, because the villains of the first two books are President Rodriguez and Frederico Alcivar. Hmm. Now the first book, that doesn't mean much on its own. It's just the president happens to be a Latino guy, like he happens to have a Spanish last name. That's not weird. But Alcivar, like at first, they repeatedly mentioned that he's Latino, like they, they've mentioned multiple times that he has a Chicano accent and the audiobook narrator makes it really clear, just in case you ever forgot. Like, they, they really, really want us to know that the mostly white town of Freedom Lake is now under control of somebody who isn't white. Secondly, the book wants us to think that he's an absolute psychopath. Like, he tortures Danny and he arrests some people on suspicion of them working with gorillas. And I mean, those are, that's about it. That's those are both the two main bad things he does. Like, he also fights and kills some of Danny's friends, but they're like shooting at him and killing his friends while they're doing it. So it's kind of hard to blame him for it. And we hear a little bit about how he's apparently killed and tortured other people in other wars in Syria and Iran. So like, it's not that like Major Alcivar is a good person, but he's not any worse than the heroes. So like, he acts exactly the same way as the heroes who are mostly white and he's portrayed as evil for it. Man, these uh, these dots sure are interesting. I wonder what sort of picture they would form if I connected them. Now if it had just been Alcivar who was Latino, it wouldn't mean much, and I wouldn't think much of it. And if just President Rodriguez had been Latino, I wouldn't think much of it, much of it. But both of them, that's uh, that's kind of suspicious. And even if we accept that the books hate racism, which I really don't accept that, I don't think they do, they leave out other nasty ideologies that Danny and his allies engage in, like anti-intellectualism, nationalism, and religious extremism. Like, there are so, so many references to God and praying and Bible passages in this series. Like, Danny and everyone else are just uber-christians and it's just kind of accepted and never questioned or examined in any way. Like, I seriously expected someone to shout, God is great, and then blow themselves up at some point. Like, this series feels like it would do that with no sense of self-awareness. You know, neo-Nazi organizations like the Brotherhood and other people working with them would be all in on the religion train. Like, they would use it as justification for everything that they did. And even if they didn't, there would probably be someone else who would take advantage of the war. Like, extreme Christians have been bombing, burning, and shooting everyone they don't like for decades. You know, the Atlanta Olympics, the Planned Parenthood shooting, the Club Q shooting, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and just general violent bigotry. Like, there are plenty of extreme Christians out there who are just waiting for the opportunity to get violent. And two of those attacks I mentioned took place within a couple of miles of where I am standing right now. But if we had something like that, that might force the audience or the author to rethink some of their beliefs. And we can't have that. That's the thing. These people only have one real belief, and that is, when it happens to other people, it's fine. When it happens to me, it's completely unacceptable. Like, that's why all the cops who agree with Danny are all good guys, but the ones who disagree are all bad guys, even when they're acting pretty much the same way. Like, if this series truly was a warning or condemnation of this war and the actions and ideologies that led up to it, then Idaho and the other rebels wouldn't have won at the end. Like, the fact that they win at the end becomes a reassurance, and it tells people, hey, the fight will be worth it in the end. The Americans say that they're losing the battle for hearts and minds, but then you look at Iraq on the news and there seem to be hearts and minds all over the place. Danny and the other rebels win by the end, but that's only possible because their opponents are always portrayed as incompetent buffoons. You know, in the first book, Danny is at a rodeo and he gets attacked by three cowboys who don't like that he murdered protesters. And then he and his friend just beat them both with no trouble. And then the FBI comes to arrest him and nearly succeed, but suddenly the sheriff is on his side. At the end, he gets chased by a bunch of armored Humvees, but luckily before he went to smuggle his mom out, he got his car tricked out and made bulletproof. And then in the second book, Danny is held at gunpoint by a U.S. soldier after an attack, like they've got him dead to rights and they could easily call for backup and arrest him, but the guy just lets him go for no real reason. And like he goes on the run and his friend is just able to build a bunker for him. It wasn't like the bunker was there beforehand. Shmitty had to build that thing. And whenever he plants a bomb or a friend distracts a soldier, the soldiers act like complete idiots and just take zero precautions at any point. When he's captured by Al-Savar, Al-Savar refuses to tell his superiors about having him captive so that they don't take him away where the rebels can't reach him. Like, you know, Al-Savar says if his superiors found out about it, they would take Danny somewhere else to be interrogated. And Al-Savar doesn't want that, so he stays in a place where the rebels are able to rescue him. Montaigne takes control of the Air Force base without a fight and without any equipment being destroyed, so now he has an Air Force and is able to fight the Feds in the air. He doesn't just get the shit bombed out of him until he has to surrender. He also manages to shut down the military's drones. How is he able to do that? Because fucking plot armor. And of course, if Idaho got hit with the full force of the military all at once, they would be crushed, so a bunch of other states declare independence completely out of nowhere. Like, there is no justification given for any of the other states declaring independence. They just do it. So throughout the entire series, anyone that Danny fights is just stupid. You know? Like, in Book Two, the brotherhood of the White Eagle has tons of heavy weapons and they're capable of coordinating a large offensive against a dug-in US military complete with armor and air support. Like, that's how they're able to push them out of Idaho at the end of Book Two. But then in Book Three, when Danny and his friends attack their camp, suddenly they're just a bunch of incompetent thugs. Like, literally, one character calls them that, he just says they're incompetent thugs, and he's correct. Like, they beat them without much trouble, they leave no survivors and they take some casualties, but nothing that heavy. Like, that's why this series really fails as a story. The protagonist is never in any real danger. Like, he loses some friends along the way, but it feels artificial because they only ever die at dramatic times. Like, normally, they just walk through hails of bullets with no trouble, so when one finally catches them, it just feels weird. Even when Danny's not fighting, even when he's just talking, people will always listen to him. E.g., at the end, when he calls for a ceasefire, and everyone just goes along with it immediately. Like, and at the end, it seems like Idaho is on the verge of losing, too. You know, like, Boise is pretty much gone. It seems like they're on the ropes, and like, they're about to surrender. So him calling for a ceasefire is what allows them to win and remain independent. Like, I don't know, just do I even need to continue with this shit? Danny is a bulletproof superman that reality bends around to make sure he wins all the time, and that's just not satisfying. Something that England won't expect, and the last thing that you're expecting is for us to form an Islamic caliphate. Now, in order to write a good novel that's about a near-future conflict, you need to have a good understanding of the real world and how it works. This author does not have that. Like, the protests at the start begin because the governor tries to annul the federal ID law, which is not how it works. You know, like, again, federal law supersedes state law. The supremacy clause of the Constitution is pretty clear on that. Like, and Montaigne and companies say, well, that doesn't count if the law is unconstitutional, but you're not the one that gets to decide that. The Supreme Court does. And this is maybe not a great system. You may not like it. You can disagree with it. You can try to change it, but that's how it is. Like, what this book series needed was for the characters to just say, yeah, that's the law, but the law is dumb and I refuse to follow it. Like, I would respect that a little bit. You know? And like I said a little bit earlier, I disagree with the federal ID law as it's written in the book. If that was a real thing, I would probably not be in favor of it either. And you know who else agrees with that? Major Al-Savar from the second book. Like, when he has Danny held captive, he straight up tells him, yeah, I agree with you. That law is stupid and it shouldn't pass. But then he tells Danny, uh, he doesn't think it's okay to break his oath and start murdering people over it. Again, like that guy's supposed to be the psychopathic villain who we're all afraid of, but he's just not. He's not as bad as Danny. Now, maybe if this series was about people deciding that America was no longer worth staying in and they had to leave, that would be one thing, but they have to keep pretending that they're the real Americans and they spout off about vague notions of freedom and wanting to be left alone, except in spite of saying they want to be left alone, they invade and attack other places. So, you know, that doesn't make sense either. The blockade around Idaho is really, really dumb too. Like, the way it's handled is just, it's just stupid. Like, Montaigne shuts the border for all federal agents so that they can't get through and they can't investigate or arrest Danny or anyone. But the thing is, federal law enforcement offices are already in Idaho. Like, they're already there. It's a border state. It's along the border with Canada. There are people in the FBI who, if an American citizen is murdered in Canada, it's their job to investigate it. Like, and on top of the FBI, there's also other federal law enforcement agencies like the ATF, the DEA, Border Patrol, ICE, and others that already have a presence there. Like, if Montaigne were to truly ban feds from the state, he would have to find and throw out the agents who are already there. And these are likely people who have lived their entire lives in Idaho. We can't show that though. That might make Montaigne look a little bad. So we'll just pretend that all of the feds live in Washington DC and only fly out when the government wants to oppress the poor white rural Americans who never ever do anything wrong. Like, do you remember in Killers of the Flower Moon how it's a big plot point that the villains want to make sure feds don't come in to investigate because it's much easier for them to control the local police? Like, just, just a thought. Just throwing that out there. Idaho also receives more in federal aid than it gives out, so they would immediately run out of money, but that might make the story look nonsensical, so they just kind of ignore it. And Idaho would also run out of stuff like food and medicine and fuel pretty quickly. Like, smuggling wouldn't make up for everything. If you don't believe me, just ask the Confederate States of America. And when the real blockade comes, the president activates the National Guard under federal control and tells them to report for duty. So like, Danny and all the others are told, hey, report to this base for duty, which is a thing that can be done. The last time it was done was to prevent segregation because a bunch of white Southerners didn't want black kids going to school with white kids, and so the president activated the National Guard to protect them while they were doing that. And in this story, only 2% of the Idaho National Guard obeys. The rest of them stay loyal to their state, which, that's stupid, that doesn't make any sense. Like, in the real American Civil War, literally tens of thousands of people from rebelling states in the South fought for the Union Army. They did, they did this for various reasons. You know, some of them were anti-slavery, some of them were more patriotic for the country than they were for their home states or, you know, whatever. And that was when regional identities were way stronger than they are today. Like, and that's not even counting other resistance to the Confederate government, like the Free State of Jones or people running away from conscription. And the Confederate government cracks down on this really hard. Like, if you ever heard of the Great Gainesville Hanging, or the Great Hanging at Gainesville, they hanged 41 suspected Unionists without any real trial because, you know, they were fighting for freedom. And yet, Divided We Fall pretends that as soon as Idaho tells them not to obey the orders of the President, everyone in Idaho is just totally on board with that, and they are willing to fight a war for this. Like, at least 30 or 40% of the Idaho National Guard should have switched, and they should have brought their equipment and weapons along with them. But there also should have been some people in Idaho who were, you know, protesting Montaigne in some way. Like, maybe even sabotaging the National Guard or assassinating officials. Like, basically, pro-Federal militias. Like, that should be a thing. There would be internal conflict there. And Montaigne should have cracked down really, really hard on that sort of thing. And also US military and intelligence would probably have been happy to give these pro-Federal militias help. But if that happened, it might make Montaigne and the rebels look bad, because then they're, you know, executing their own citizens and arresting people on suspicion of working with pro-Federal militias or anything. And like, they kind of touch on that with collaborators. But I mean, all of the collaborators, or not all of them, but most of the collaborators that get accused are really just people who aren't white or people who criticize the brotherhood in any way. So it doesn't really work. And if that happened, it also wouldn't make sense for the heroes to defeat the army with their big, swinging dicks. Like, the way it's described, it sounds like a couple of people left Idaho after the blockade and they were all completely unimportant. You know, no high-ranking politicians, no high-ranking officers in the National Guard. Like, nothing. Any war that happened in the real world that was anything like this would be ten times more confusing than it's described in the books. And Danny would probably wind up having to fight a lot of his fellow townspeak. And again, if you really want to make the story morally gray or make it a cautionary tale, you would have to show that sort of shit. But they don't. And on top of that, plenty of other really weird stuff happens in the series, which isn't focused on much, but is still stupid. Like, Arizona declares independence and tries to annex Los Angeles. I don't know how or why or what their justification is, but they do. A naval fleet goes rogue and becomes a sovereign nation, which is just called the rogue fleet. And it goes and fights against China. Again, that's a thing. Russia invades its neighbors and renames itself the Soviet Union. Like, that first part is believable, but if it invaded and annexed its neighbors, it would keep calling itself Russia. It wouldn't bother changing the name, because it wouldn't be doing it in the name of communism. Also, all of Israel's neighbors forget that they hate each other and invade. And at the beginning of the story, like I said, the U.S. is at war with Iran, which makes sense. You know, the U.S. government and the Iranian government have hated each other for a long time. But the U.S. is also at war with Pakistan. Why Pakistan? I don't know. I think the author just chose a random Muslim country. I don't know. Just the setting here is just a fucking mess in every conceivable way. Unlikely things for a royal correspondent to say. It's great to see the whole family waving from the balcony through the sights of my AK-47. Like I said, this series is, it's just a mess. You know, that's the best way to describe it. It's just a mess. If it truly was a warning, it wouldn't go out of its way to justify literally everything that Danny and Montaigne do. And focusing on the awful impacts of war, it doesn't mean much when the heroes start the war, commit a bunch of crimes, and get everything they want out of it. Like, again, Idaho is independent at the end, so they won. They got what they wanted. And to be honest, the war would never end the way it was described here. Like, never in a million years. Because it's confirmed that 13 million people died in the nuclear attacks, and several million more died in the rest of the fighting along with things like starvation and disease. So around 16 million people died in total on all sides. Now during the real American Civil War, the rebellious states were treated with kids gloves at first, because the government was trying not to escalate things. But after a few years of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers being killed, the North being invaded, and the overall knowledge that this was being done in the name of some wealthy aristocrats trying to keep slaves, the gloves came off. And now I bring your attention back to my William Sherman shirt. He burned down the city of Atlanta—well, sort of, it was already partially burned down when he got there—and then he continued burning down most of Georgia in a huge chunk of the South, and the public was just kind of okay with that. You know, and when his army attacked South Carolina, they were twice as brutal as they were in Georgia, because South Carolina was the first state to secede, so they were seen as the ones who started all of this. And as much as Idaho might want independence in this book series, no one would be willing to give it to them. Like, remaining Americans would kill everyone there, and they would feel no guilt, because they would see them as responsible for all of this chaos and death and destruction, especially once they found out about the Brotherhood's executions, the ethnic cleansing, the slaves, you know. And I should clarify, again, they have slaves for forced labor, and they have sex slaves. Those are both bad, and the Brotherhood did both of them, and the Idaho government is working with them, and they definitely knew about it. All of this can be traced back to Danny slash Idaho slash Governor Montaigne. Now, is this right, you know, to continue the war, continue the killing, just because you're just in the name of revenge? Probably not. But it might honestly be preferable to giving literal neo-Nazis what they want, because some teenager asked nicely for a ceasefire. And I try to put myself into the shoes of the people in this world. You know, I try to imagine when the Brotherhood in Idaho took over Spokane, and it's implied murder a bunch of people there, I put myself in those shoes, and I remember that my brother and his family used to live near there, so I'd imagine how I would feel in that scenario. You know, if a bunch of neo-Nazi rebels murdered my brother and his family, and also they set off nuclear weapons killing millions of innocent people on the East Coast. I would want to hit Boise with the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Like, if this book series was trying to be a warning, it failed. But also, if it was trying to be a far-right fantasy and show, hey, wouldn't this be awesome? It didn't do a very good job of that, either, because it shows how shitty the war is, and sometimes it's against racism. Like, the sort of people crazy enough to want to secede from the U.S. so that they can have slaves are going to look at the ending where Idaho wins and gains independence, and they're going to nod in approval. So what exactly is divided we fall trying to say? And it's hard to say for certain, but whatever it was trying to say, it did a bad job of saying it. What I can say for certain is that it tries way, way too hard to sanitize Danny and, by extension, all the rebels and all the normal people who are okay with this and are pro-independence and are just going along with it. Like, it's basically trying to say normal folks in Idaho would never work with Nazis if they knew they were Nazis in spite of them, you know, cheering at a public hanging at the end of the second book. Or, we just love freedom and want the government to leave us alone in spite of our government killing protesters and trying to cover it up and also us invading other places. Like, every act of violence in this series starts with the rebels, but we're supposed to think that both sides are equally to blame. You know, this kind of reminds me of really shitty Mary Sue protagonists a bit. You know, like, they're jerks who screw over everyone around them, but we're supposed to think that they're awesome paragons of virtue because the author likes them. Good example of this is Zoe Redbird from House of Night. You know, she has a love octagon with a bunch of other dudes, but she constantly refers to other girls as being sluts and hoes, even though, again, she's like, she's messing around with all these dudes at once. Like, the issue isn't that Zoe is a hypocrite or she's a jerk. The issue is that the story doesn't acknowledge it and just wants us to think that Zoe is a good person. And Divided We Fall feels a lot like that only on a much bigger scale. And I don't know, just let that be a lesson to all of you. A story with a villain protagonist has to be honest with its audience. You know, you can't pretend that they're good people or morally gray because that causes serious dissonance and that dissonance will ruin everything. The series is a mess and that's a shame because it could have been something great. You know, whether I agree with it politically or not, it really could have been a phenomenal story, but it wasn't, you know? And that's all. This went on substantially longer than I wanted it to, but you know, that's all. I wasn't expecting to make such a big video on this series, but like it just, it wound up being that. So my next big video should be on the Chemical Garden series. Stay tuned for that. And that's all. Subscribe and stuff. Hello. Thanks to everyone who watched, especially if you watched all the way to this point. These names here, these are my patrons. If you go over to Patreon, then you can, you know, get your name put on here. Special thanks to all of my $10 and up patrons who are Oppo Savalainen, Olivia Rayan, Brother Santotys, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Antcelliovic, Dark King, Dio, Echo, Flax, Jalal Dalul, James M, Lexie DeLorm, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Michael and Katie Haake, Microphone, Mistboy, Mitsimona, RobiReviews, Sad Mardigan, Psyche XS, Celine, Silyr the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Toa Mikkel, Tesla Shark, Vivek Dix, Vimeck Zoll and Wesley. All of you are great. 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