If anyone wants a better idea about how much artistic license was used then they should listen to the associated podcast.
Feck, just listen to the podcast anyway. It’s very good.
Television Chernobyl (HBO/Sky drama series)
- Thread starter dr.twinny
- Start date
Feck, just listen to the podcast anyway. It’s very good.
Yep, been listening along myself.
As it happens, I don't mind the Chernobyl podcast. It's pretty good. I'm mostly interested in the behind-the-scenes anecdotes it has to offer, that reveal how the writing team came to certain creative decisions, and there are plenty of those.
I'm less interested, however, in knowing whether certain depicted events actually occurred, so I kinda tune out during those bits. I understand that for some people it dampens the experience to know if things aren't strictly 100% true, but I'd say that this obsession we've developed with watertight continuity, having all of our questions answered, and not allowing our imaginations do the work for us, has nearly turned film and television into a joyless experience. When did we stop trusting TV and film writers to tell us stories?
Anyway, I'd argue that murky truth is the point of the series: the information surrounding the disaster was obscured so significantly for so long by the Soviets that it denied the chance for a full picture to ever be formed by future researchers. As far as I'm concerned, using a little artistic licence to generate some drama or contribute to the emotional stakes is fair game, especially when the notes you're drawing from might be complete fiction themselves.
It's a sin that they allowed the contaminated guys to die in unbearable agony as their bodies melted from the inside out.
Euthanasia would have been not an act of mercy, but of duty. I'm glad those doctors, nurses and other officials lived with those images forever because they ALLOWED it.
Euthanasia would have been not an act of mercy, but of duty. I'm glad those doctors, nurses and other officials lived with those images forever because they ALLOWED it.
What a naive position...
If there's no legal framework for euthanasia (and there wasn't at the time), then it's classified as murder. They'd be disqualified from their professions and probably spend couple of decades in prison to boot.
The people high in the party command who could have perhaps authorised it with impunity, are not the ones who had to treat them in hospital and live with the images.
Nothing naive about it. You either sacrifice, or you don't. They chose to be part of the system and let those people melt and rot alive, for fear of the alternative: charged with murder.
You're just enforcing how naive your position is with every consequent post. There's nothing simple or straightforward about having to sacrifice your own livelihood. It's easy to talk tough on a forum when your own life is not impacted by the decisions you'd supposedly easily take.
To use a quote from the series itself....
It's ok. You don't sound like the type of person who would sacrifice ot break the rules for the greater good. And don't pretend you know me or what would I do in that situation.
Jesus Christ. Alright pal...
He is delusional, take him to the infirmary.
This is an oddly absolutist stance. Euthanasia, being allowed to die, ending a patient's suffering, it's a complex and sensitive matter. It's easy to say now that those stricken with ARS should have been allowed to die before they endured too much pain, but the laypeople and those in the ground in Chernobyl knew very little about the effects of radiation sickness at the time of the disaster and - as we see with Vasily - genuinely thought they would get better. In fact, they knew very little about what was actually happening at the power plant. As I've said numerous times in this thread, the point that the series tries to make is that any information concerning the disaster was contained and deliberately muddled by the Soviet Union. Thirty years on, we still don't have the full picture. I can't imagine what it was like within a week of the accident.
If you must know, I'm a huge advocate for allowing people to die on their own terms, or when it's for the best, or to shorten a person's suffering. If you pressed me hard enough I'd say existence is a curse that we all deserve to be free of. My granddad's five years deep into vascular dementia and we've recently moved him into a care home - he's badly withered because he refuses to eat, he's suffering with intense paranoia and incontinence, and he can't remember his own name. Pretty soon he'll die, either by stroke, heart attack, or choking to death because he's forgotten how to swallow. If there was a way to end his life tonight while he slept, I'd take it in a heartbeat. Keeping him alive is pointless. The care staff at the home he lives in, though, have a legal obligation to give him his medication and feed him. To what end, though? His medication won't make him better, it'll just mean he's artificially withered, paranoid, and incontinent for longer than necessary.
But am I angry with the care staff for "choosing to be a part of the system"? Absolutely not. As far as the care staff are concerned, they do what they do to make my granddad's last few months a bit easier. Are they naive for thinking that's even remotely possible? Definitely. But do I expect them to stop giving my granddad his medication out of mercy, and is it worth getting so worked up when the end result is the same for my granddad whether it happens this week or in five years? No. I think you have to apply this same begrudging acceptance to the situation at Chernobyl. It would have been easier for the nurses to euthanise those ARS sufferers but the legality of euthanasia in the Soviet Union is sketchy. Everybody involved was either acting under direct orders or doing the best they could in the middle of complete chaos. Those affected by radiation sickness dying so slowly and painfully is an awful thing to imagine, but I'm not sure you're directing your anger towards the right people.
If watching a man slowly dying with melting skin anb bubbling his liver out of his mouth is not enough to grant him euthanasia, knowing there's zero chance he will recover, then nothing will.
I don't disagree. But I think you're directing your anger at the wrong people. Nurses aren't lawmakers.
I mentioned everyone in an earlier post: doctors, nurses, officials in charge, etc. But it's ok. Nobody there at the time had the bravery to put those agonizing men and women out of their unbearable misery. So, naive I'll remain.
Why are you trying to pick a fight?
Bah! I'll see myself out of this thread. Dead-end indeed.
What if they patients didn't want to be euthanized? Would you still make a moral stand for the greater good? Absolutely bizzare stance, especially to blame the doctors and nurses who risked their own lives to treat potentially deadly patients.
Nobody had the bravery? What about their families? Going to jail and leaving the kids/family members alone just to be "brave"? It is not bravery, it is stupidity. This isn't fairy tale, things aren't only black and white.
A lot of people upset around here because they are discovering their lack of guts to sacrifice.
You're all delusional, take them to the infirmary
Can't believe this page. 
jesus christBreaking Bad never evoked such profound emotions in its viewers. This meltdown should be respected. No pun intended.
Sacrifice what?
Some posters have mentioned family, freedom, life.
But what do you think you'd be sacrificing in a regime such as the U.S.S.R.?
The ARS people were doomed. Their agony and suffering was pointless.
That's such a juvenile opinion.
No middle ground when it comes to sacrifice: you do it, or you don't.
If somebody had terminal cancer and was in pain, would you euthanise them regardless of their wishes in order to end their suffering?
Fecking hell.
The conveyance of fear running through the people from far higher up than workers in hospitals left no impression on you? In an evaluation, you'd put your family on the line for strangers, suffering as they were, granted?
Do you think it's a question of bravery to put people other than yourself in jeopardy?
What a weirdoPlease, everybody: stick to the ARS crisis of Chernobyl 1986. We are derailing the thread.
Because that doesn't suit your very twisted agenda? Euthanasia is euthanasia, you can't hold standards for one tradegy and not apply the same to other cases.
You remind me of Jez from Peep Show when he discusses what he'd have done in WW2. "I'd probably have got on a train to Berlin and killed Hitler!"
Christ.
It's virtually pointless to discuss whether we'd 'have the guts' to end someone's life in those circumstances because, fortunately for us, it's merely hypothetical. Effectively bragging about making a moral decision is worthless.
It's disturbing how some folks are so quickly to dismiss euthanasia even in a "zero chances of survival ARS outbreak".
I agreed with you and you were still aggressive with me!
Have a day off, mate.Please everyone stop pointing out how dumb my opinions are, it is derailing the thread.
