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Noah Kirchheimer Blog Entry |
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August 26, 2023, 2:00:17 AM 8/26/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Movie Week: Free Draw Finale." Well, I don't watch many movies, so couldn't think of any to draw, so decided to go off theme and draw one of my characters like I usually do for Free Draw Friday. (I feel guilty to skip a week as I plan to eventually draw them all.) This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Noah Kirchheimer. He's not a major character, though does play a few important roles in the background, working for the resistance. He kind of has an attitude problem, though. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, he should look a bit angrier rather than perplexed. TUMBLR EDIT: There's quite a bit about Noah's role in the story in his cousin Johanna Wolfstein's entry. So I recommend looking at that. I don't really know his background yet except that something occurred to make him quite angry, bitter, and distrustful, as well as so overly protective of the much softer-hearted Johanna that Otto Himmel mistakes the two for husband and wife. There's nothing inappropriate between them, just that in the absence of Johanna's brother Jakob, Noah takes on a protective brother role and tries (a bit too hard at times) to keep her safe. Noah and Jakob Wolfstein can easily be compared to Josef Diamant and Tobias Schäfer on the canine side of the story. While Wolfstein and Schäfer remain kind and moderate despite their awful experiences (both of them were incarcerated in labor camps, with Wolfstein being experimented on and tortured in Project Doomsday, while Schäfer was literally purchased for the price of a tapestry before he could be executed), and still try to believe in the goodness inherent in most people, Diamant and Noah go in the other direction, becoming angrier, more distrusting, and more militant. Although Diamant attempts to minimize civilian casualties as the leader of a resistance movement that often engages in bombings and attempted assassinations (the SS declares them a terrorist group), there are times when innocent people get killed anyway, and Diamant himself often engages in morally murky behavior including torture. He, too, was imprisoned in a camp, where he was deliberately targeted by the commandant, Ernst Dannecker, who subjected him to frequent physical and psychological torture (there's an instance of a sort of sexual abuse as well, though Dannecker uses a proxy for this) which left him badly traumatized and partly crippled in one hand; ironically, Diamant ends up taking on so many of Dannecker's personality characteristics, including his unnerving smile and his fondness for Russian roulette as an intimidation tactic, that Schäfer (who'd been in the same camp, yet at a different time) describes him as having "sold half his soul to the Devil," the Devil being Dannecker's nickname (der Teufel). In effect, Schäfer is saying that Diamant has partly become his own enemy and tormentor, Dannecker. And in some ways it rings true, the only real difference in Dannecker's and Diamant's actions at times is that they're on opposite sides. (Both Dannecker, if he were still alive (Diamant murdered him), and Diamant would vehemently deny this, which kind of proves Schäfer's point.) Which brings us to Noah. Noah's attitude is described quite well in Johanna's entry; even well after the war, he's openly hostile toward Himmel, who had actually worked to undermine his fellow Nazis' efforts in wartime--largely with Noah's assistance. It doesn't matter to Noah (not until very late, at least)--like Diamant, he can use somebody to achieve a goal, yet then they become expendable, especially if they're allied with the enemy. Considering the circumstances, such a mindset makes sense; even Himmel acts in such a manner when he confronts Corporal Anna Julian. What is somewhat a mystery still is WHY Noah has such a militant attitude. He's the only one of these four, as it happens, who DOESN'T spend time in a camp, or end up nearly killed. Although he does have to go into hiding with Johanna, his life is relatively safe and much easier in comparison, as he has a wide network of resistance allies to help and protect them. So what's the basis of Noah's occasionally over-the-top rage? Like I said, given the timeline of the story, it's not unreasonable for Noah to be this way just because he sees what's happening to others. His behavior strikes me as a little TOO aggressive at times, though. There's almost a feeling that he's overcompensating. And in fact, I feel this is what he's doing: He knows he's relatively safe and well off, he has people to help him, he has a good number of resources that many of his fellow Jews lack. He's working from a position of privilege, and I think it wears on him. He likely has not only a sense of guilt at being in such a position when so few other people are, but also more than a trace of spite that he can't approach this battle from the same angle of struggle that many of his peers can. Noah's never been a soldier, he's never fought in a war. He's never been in a ghetto and he's never been in a camp. No Nazi has ever experimented on him, tortured him, forced him into slave labor, played mind games on him or relegated him to death or traded him for a wall hanging. Aside from Himmel, he's never even directly faced a Nazi down--and Himmel was Noah's captive, not the other way around. Noah's entire existence, even during the war, has been pretty safe and cushy, and I think he resents that. He likely feels like a bit of a fraud and wishes he had a more appropriate background to be fighting from. Result, he tends to overdo things. He acts like more of a tough guy than he actually is (Himmel nearly calls his bluff, and Noah ends up regretting it when he's thus forced to try to prove himself by following through on his threats--Himmel's son Kolten flies into a rage and turns Noah into a ragdoll until Himmel convinces him to stop), antagonizes both friends and foes far more than he should (even Wolfstein gets fed up with him more than once), and basically infantilizes Johanna by insisting she's too weak and gullible to effectively look out for herself or make her own decisions. Late in the story he nearly ostracizes himself from the rest of his family due to making every disagreement into the hill he's going to die on. Oddly, it's Himmel who talks him down from this, or rather, Himmel's letters, written to his deceased wife since the birth of their son. Noah finally gets a glimpse of the human behind the enemy's face, and learns his reasons for making the choices he did. (Himmel never believed in the Nazi cause, joining the party only in the hopes it would protect Kolten.) Himmel may be a very rare exception to the rule, but that's the point. An exception exists yet Noah had been willing to pretend he doesn't, at the risk of losing his own family. His entire worldview doesn't change--he still rightly distrusts and despises others like Himmel--but there's a very slight shift. He realizes he can't just take at face value that everyone in a group is exactly the same...that sort of mindset is what got everyone here. (PLEASE NOTE, I'm talking about fiction here, where I know all the characters' true motives because I created them. This doesn't apply nearly so cleanly to real life, where if somebody is wearing a swastika, you can likely correctly judge their mentality at a glance; I'm by no means saying give Nazis a chance. I know I wouldn't.) Anyway, without taking a good deal of time to brainstorm Noah's past, and maybe not get anywhere yet (these guys reveal stuff on their own schedule), this is what I've got for him. I suspect his past was quite normal and tame, and that's ironically what helped make him so tense and hostile in the story; he feels he has to go out of his way to prove himself to everyone else who didn't have it so easy, and always worries that he's not good enough. Unlike Wolfstein, Schäfer, or Diamant, who each had concrete, external enemies, he put the chip on his own shoulder. [Noah Kirchheimer 2023 [Saturday, August 26, 2023, 2:00:17 AM]] |