Notes From A Battlefield 003

There is a cast of characters which you find in many 'entertainments' ostensibly with the theme of War. You might be watching Hogan's Heroes or Dad's Army or 'Allo, 'Allo and some of the stereotypes remain the same.

But the main theme is the use of humour as something which undermines the ridiculously authoritarian regimes under which the characters live out their hopeful existence. In Hogan's Heroes, the dastardly and incompetent Colonel Klink is continually being chivvied around with good humour by Colonel Hogan and his men, although he is the commandant of their POW camp. In Dad's Army, the infamous theme song lays out a determined resistance, despite the fact that the Home Guard platoon in the show would never have survived a German attack (or so they thought). And in 'Allo, 'Allo, the French just carry on making their living (or is that make their living carrying on?) around the café while the Germans attempt to loot everything and destroy their culture.

All that reminds us that despite the purges, shootings (and other live firing), and general chaos (or major, corporal or private chaos) which make muck of the countryside, those who resist may someday survive to make a better world. The wounds (as in the scouring of the Shire from Tolkien's Return of the King) may never really heal in the short term, but a new age may be around the corner. If there is still a king with all the powers, nature and instruments of true kingship, that new age may yet be blessed for all who live in it.