Saga of Tanya the Evil II

Episode 4

I've always had a bit of an issue with the English title “Saga of Tanya the Evil” (as opposed to a more direct translation like “Record of a Young Girl's War”). This is because, while she is undoubtedly a villain-protagonist, I'd hesitate to call Tanya an ultimate evil—especially in an episode like this one.

As we talked about last week, Tanya is incapable of empathy—and has been since birth in her first life. Without this emotion to guide her, she has instead made her way through two worlds by tempering her own self-interest with cold, hard logic and society's explicit rules. She truly thinks that anything and everything she does is fine as long as she follows the established laws and chain of command. In a very real way, as she lacks an innate moral compass to guide her, Tanya is only as evil as the world we've built allows her to be.

...And even she can see that peace at any cost is the objectively best option.

The same can not be said for the politicians ruling The Empire. They are simply concerned only with self-interest despite being the ones who are supposed to be putting the good of the country first. They see the state of the war and can tell that, even with the concessions gained through Operation Iron Hammer, The Empire is on the edge of revolution—i.e., if things end now, the politicians would take the fall. Thus, they have decided total victory at any cost is the only true option (as it's the only way that they remain in power).

Enter Kurt von Rudersdorf. Last episode, we saw him surprise Zettour by rejecting the “return to pre-war status quo” peace treaty and pushing Operation Iron Hammer instead. This episode, we learn why. Rudersdorf's family has been broken by the war. His daughter has fallen into deep depression after the death of her husband. Like nearly everyone besides Tanya and Zettour, he felt the emotional need to make the war have meant something—to be able to point at the map and say, “this is what my son-in-law died for.”

With his wife and daughter having left the capital in their grief, Rudersdorf is alone. He only goes three places: headquarters, the bar, and his son-in-law's grave—he doesn't even go home anymore. His life is composed of only two things: the war and his grief.

So when the politicians tell him the war must go on—that victory at all costs is the only way—we see him capitulate. And there are two ways of reading this. The first is that he is so hurt and so isolated that the war is all that he has left—that the only way he feels he can atone for his part in his son-in-law's death is to deliver that ephemeral “perfect” victory.

The other possibility is that his white whale is no longer The Republic, The Federation, or The Commonwealth. He sees the men at the top—those who time and time again had the ability to end the war but chose not to—and has decided that it is The Empire itself that is the problem. The country itself must pay for its hubris with a blood price so high that it never even considers war again. Only then will the war—along with the death of his son-in-law and all the others—have meant something.

Either way, it's clear to Zettour that this moment marks the beginning of the end. This was their final chance to claim victory. Even if the Federation falls, the win will be so costly it will be a pyrrhic one. An ocean of needlessly shed blood now stands before The Empire—and it is Tanya that will have to wade through it.

Saga of Tanya the Evil II is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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