Let’s Talk Love, Death, and Robots: The Secret War

Hey y’all! Today, we’re going to dive into another episode of Love, Death, and Robots called The Secret War. It provides an interesting twist to a historical context that most of us are familiar with, similar to the episode Shapeshifters. This post contains some spoilers, so you should watch the episode on Netflix first, but just know that it’s pretty gruesome. If that’s not your jam, I’m going to provide a brief summary below. So go ahead, pull up a chair, and let’s talk The Secret War.

Quick rundown of the episode

The episode takes place during World War II, around the time of the Battle of Stalingrad. That battle was the climax of the German invasion of Russia and, besides the bombing of Pearl Harbor, might be the greatest mistake made by the Axis during the conflict.

While this is going on, two Red Army squads move through Eastern Russia, hunting an unseen enemy. That enemy leaves nothing but death and destruction in its wake. Whole villages slaughtered, not one survivor.

The teams progress forward, and one of them is attacked by the enemy: a horde of monstrous, demonic creatures. They incur casualties, but the squad fights off the attack. The second team is attacked by the demons, but is unable to be supported by the other squad since they already were recovering from combat, but also were too far away to help. They are completely annihilated.

Afterward, a body is found. It belongs to Boris Grishin, a major and part of the Cheka, the Russian Secret police.

He was tasked with carrying out Operation Hades, which focused around exploring “arcane peasant myths”

Grishin orchestrated a black magic ritual to summon demons, called ghouls, to fight for the Red Army. The same demons that the Red Army was now exterminating.

The soldiers move onward, and find the barrow, home to the ghouls. Charges are set to cave in the entrance to the barrow, but the explosion reveals that the barrow is much bigger than anticipated, and results in deaths of a couple squad members. Realizing that they can’t escape the coming horde, the soldiers entrench, setting up the rest of the explosives around the area. They send off one of the members to notify the commanding officer to bomb the area into dust.

The soldiers fight valiantly, but eventually the ghouls overrun them. The squad leader detonates the charges, killing some of the horde. The next day, Red Army bombers level the area.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way

This episode is kind of tough to watch, but has a bunch of incredibly interesting themes. It’s also incredibly historically accurate, at least from the perspective of the weapons and clothes (not entirely sure about the flesh eating demons). There are some useful tactical lessons as well, but that’s for another post. Let’s get into the themes and motifs though.

First, if your plan has “black magic ritual” anywhere in it, you need to rethink your entire life

I’m not even going to go into this one.

Second, when you’re going through hard times, persevere

There’s a quote that says “if you’re going through Hell, keep going”. Which really has to do with the idea of perseverance. Throughout the entire episode, you see the soldiers push onward through death and despair towards their goal. Even though the situation seems utterly terrifying they never lost hope, and they kept on keeping on.

The lieutenant of the squad the episode follows has a quote that I found very interesting, and extremely applicable to our lives. He says “There’s darkness in every direction these days, comrade. We’ll have to find our own way through it”. There are three reasons this hit home with me.

There will be times when things are bleak

Rocky said it best, in my opinion. “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows”. There will be times in life where things just seem……dark. I’ve experienced them, and I’m sure you have too. And times like that will come again. But that’s ok. Ironically, without the hard times, we would be unable to appreciate the good ones. So we shouldn’t try to avoid them, because the avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering.

And more importantly, overcoming those struggles and hard times makes us stronger. We grow, we learn, and we see what we’re capable of. We become more confident in our abilities, and realize where our strengths and weakness lie. And then we do it again, because we know that even though it might take some time, we will not be stopped.

Sometimes, we have to figure things out for ourselves

No matter what anyone says, experience is the best teacher. Our parents, teachers, elders, etc. try to tell us things all the time, but sometimes we have to go through trials ourselves for those points to stick. And that’s ok. Fail fast and fail often, but remember to get back up and try again.

There will be times when you have to go through things yourself. Whether it’s writing a paper for school, going to the gym, making an important life choice, or having a difficult conversation, at the end of the day, it’s you who has to do it. As Jim Rohn said, “you can’t hire someone to do your push ups for you”. And quite a bit of life is like that. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and just get after it.

“WE will have to find our own way through it”

This is part of the dichotomy of my last point. While most actions you have to do yourself, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to go through it completely alone. It’s like having a gym partner. They can’t do the reps for you but they’ll support, encourage, and uplift you through it. There are few times when you can’t go and ask for help, advice, or just company.

Whatever people tell you, humans are social creatures. We can see that in the negative effects of solitary confinement on prisoners. And while being alone to recharge is necessary for some, like me, isolation is often associated with depression and mental illness. Most of us will find that when we’re going through things, we tend to reach out to others. Because it’s in those times that we need that social support the most.

And for most of us, we have that support system. And we should know that it’s ok to utilize it. Because we all need it at some point or another. We all need to hug, to laugh, to cry, and to work through things together. So it’s ok to reach out for help and provide support to people in need. That’s what community is about.

Third, duty is something that all of us have

The Red Army troops had a mission to uphold. It was their duty as Russian soldiers to find and eliminate the threat to their country and people. That mission trumped everything. Once the origin or ghouls was revealed, a soldier suggested that they report the information to their superiors, so that they could wipe out the demons. The lieutenant responded “They would more likely end us for revealing their past mistakes. No, we have our mission comrade. Nothing more.”

There’s an understanding there that the past does not matter. It’s nothing more than an explanation of what happened, and a lesson to be learned. But they had a moral and legal obligation to carry out that task. And they did, sacrificing their lives in the process.

The Boy Scouts split duty into three categories: duty to God and country, duty to others, and duty to self

Duty to God is pretty straightforward. If you have a religious inclination, you do your duty to God by following the teachings of your religion. That one can be pretty difficult, since people have a tendency to skew the meanings of texts, words, and scriptures. But it’s also your duty to understand as best as you can, and to ask questions that facilitate that. You can’t just take what people say at face value. “Trust, but verify”.

Duty to country involves doing things for the good of the country and obeying laws. Ironically, it’s also your duty to work to overturn any laws that you deem to be unjust. But I find that point interesting, because as we discussed in our talk about justice, something might be legal, but not moral. And, for the most part, we should work to change those laws without breaking them.

Duty to others manifests itself in how we interact with other people. Similar to duty to country, there are things that we do for the good of other people. And as we discussed earlier, we have to support each other in times of hardship. People will need help at some point or another, and so it’s our duty to do what we can, to the best of our ability.

Duty to self is the root of all of the others. We should be “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight”, which basically means that we need to work to build up our mind, body, and spirit. In that way, we can tackle the hardships that we will eventually come across, and persevere when times seem dark.

Finally, sometimes we have to make sacrifices

Sacrifice is a concept that many of us think of, but not many truly understand. It really boils down to that sometimes something must be lost for in order for something else to be gained. Parents sacrifice their time, money, and energy to raise their kids properly (and you can see how those who don’t negatively impact their kids). We sacrifice cravings for overall health, give up a night hanging out to finish a paper, or skip going to a convention to write a blog post (that’s me right now).

But those sacrifices are deemed to be worth it because of what is gained from them. Being healthy means you can do more, finishing that paper leads to an increase in knowledge (and hopefully an A), and writing blog posts provides happiness and a platform to discuss different topics with people. But the point is that they are necessary.

Even though this show is fictional, I can’t imagine the feeling of knowing that your life is about to end. Or going through the process of accepting that and fighting til the end. I don’t know what that feels like. But the troops in the show knew that if they didn’t make the ultimate sacrifice, that the rest of the country was doomed. So they did what they had to do. Which leads me to the last thing I want to talk with you about today.

For those in the USA, this is Memorial Day weekend

For most, that means a day off on Monday for some rest and relaxation, and maybe grilling and chilling with friends. But I think it’s important to note the reason why this weekend is special.

As the name suggests, Memorial Day is for remembering and honoring those that have died in the US Armed Forces. These men and women gave their lives for our country. They paid the ultimate price so that we could live our lives without worry of outside threats.

And while I understand that not all wars are just or necessary, these people, our countrymen and countrywomen, dedicated their lives in service to others. They decided to pick dangerous professions, where their lives were at risk, for us.

They’re not the only ones though. Plenty of police officers, firefighters, EMTs, and other first-responders have given their lives in order to make our country a better place. And while there are many points of contention now, especially with law enforcement, there are plenty of people who joined these organizations because of their duty. And they lived out that duty to the end, and we will never be able to repay them.

So this weekend, while you’re enjoying yourselves and living your lives, I just ask that you take a moment to remember those that died for us. For those that wanted to make the world a better place to live, and fulfilled that duty all the way to the end. And for those of you who have lost loved ones, thank you for being strong and I offer my sincerest condolences.

We talked about a lot today, and it got pretty heavy

But the main takeaways are these: persevere when things look bleak, do your duty, and there will come a time when sacrifice is necessary. Pay respects to those who sacrificed for you, living and deceased, and live your life in a way that honors them. And don’t partake in black magic rituals, but that should maybe, just maybe, go without saying.

I want to thank you for talking humans with me today. If you liked the article, please subscribe! And If you think someone would get something from it, please share! If you want to continue the conversation or just want to talk, you can leave a comment, hit me up via the Contact Me page, or you can find me on Instagram at @ryokeniii. As always, don’t forget to talk humans (and NOT demonic rituals) with someone this week. Seeya next time!