The Consequence of Victory

What is the point of winning? When two factions go against each other through blood and sweat and death is there ever really a winner or simply one side that loses less than the other? Toward the end of Dick's novel when Juliana confronts Hawthorne Abendsen a truth comes out, "'Germany and Japan lost the war'"(Dick, 257). Their victory, the act that changed entire continents, was a lie. Now, by lie I am not saying that it didn't happen in terms of the novel, but that it was not a true victory. For a true victory to exist there mustn’t be any loss. Yet, both Japan and Germany continue to lose. Japan is in constant fear of being overtake and blindsided by Germany, and Germany is attempting to turn a blind eye to a failing economy and manage an empire too big for any one group to control.

The win was a fake. Much like the fakes that embedded themselves in the antique market in the book, the victory of Japan and Germany over the Allied forces was a fraud. Yet, if one was to expose this, was to blatantly point out the countless fallacies of both empires, nothing would be left. The state of the entire planet rests on the hope that both of these super powers will never show their hands and keep on bluffing until one finally caves. Victory is never truly whole. There is never a moment when someone has won outright with no consequence. The only truthful outcome is loss because when you lose there is nothing, and no reason, to hide.