The State

[Oldowl]

Anyone watching?

Link I posted above from the channel 4 site with back stories.

It's here: www.channel4.com/info/press/news/the-characters-of-the-state

I didn't see any reference in the show to an abusive relationship let alone anything else.

A bit goodies and baddies tbh but I enjoyed it.

Ah, thank you. I wonder what "Ultimately, he learns something which will make him question his whole rationale for joining ISIS." Is receding to?

Referring to!

I'm so glad this thread is here.. the programme was so well done she thought provoking.

I did think they should have depicted the debilitating damage that would have been done from the 'punishments' and torture.

I imagine if the doctor had really had her feet lacerated like that, she would have been badly affected in many ways. Also the pharmacist.. no sooner had he been mercilessly lashed than he was up and walking around without any impact.

I think the director should have shown broken body as well as broken spirit to really get the horror across.

I think it means his brother being beheaded as a deserter rather than dying a martyr.

Yes that's it
Although his brother was beheaded for refusing to kill Shia Muslims as the pharmacist explained. So the brother seemingly had the same problems as jalal found.

It was very hard to watch but I think it's important that we have discussions about why this is seen as an opportunity and something which is desirable for some young people, not all of them from Muslim families.

Agree with pp that the doctor was the most infuriating character by far and the dad from Eastenders going to all that trouble and to be possible killed or at the very least arrested on his return to the UK just to tell Jalal he had shamed him was a bit far fetched.

I was also kind of wtf wtf did you think it would be! whenever the doctor was on.

That said, we are far more knowledgable now regarding conditions - particularly in the proposed caliphate of Raqqah - than many of the early recruits will have been.

I may be alone in this, but I believe we humans are far easier to 'brainwash' than we like to think.

I was amazed the doctor could be 26 with a son that age - surely that would be almost impossible?

Money wasn't mentioned and I haven't heard it mentioned anywhere with regard to the women who go there - surely their bank accounts would be emptied?

I may be alone in this, but I believe we humans are far easier to 'brainwash' than we like to think.

You are not alone at all with that one. Trump comes to mind.

The dad - what benefit did that have? A waste of minutes, I think his talking with the pharma and saving the mother and child was enough for suspicion.

And yes to the feet! They were ripped to shreds (Nod to handmaids again) yet I've lumped more with a blister.

It just felt a bit rushed. It was still very good and informative in my view but could have been excellent with more depth and time.

Friends tonight pointed out that it was promoted as x4 stories but really it was 2.5.

He was 9, 17+9=26
They get allowances apparently. Food and rent is covered.

I know this is trivial in comparison to many of the issues raised by the programme, but it's bothering me. In order to fit in 5 years of medical school, 2 years of foundation training, 6 months of Obs & Gynae and 6 months of A&E by the age of 26, Shakira must have studied and worked full-time for all of the time since leaving school, including very long hours and night shifts. Who was looking after Isaac?

It's possible. She would have been 8 years post start of university at 26. I doubt Isis would require the full quota of practice time.

Having said that... I noticed that she had anesthetist and surgical skills even though she was emergency with gynae which I think is unrealistic?

Just seen that I've cross-posted with ImperialBlether

Perhaps Shakira had Isaac in the summer holidays between Y12 & Y13. There could have been a creche at her college / sixth form. Once she started medical school and house jobs, I can only imagine that the magical childcare fairy took care of him for the 60-80 hours per week that she was training.

i made it 16 as he was 2 weeks from 10 years old but that's a bit pedantic.

Her work history wasn't impossible but a bit improbable in my view

I didn't mean that it actually wasn't possible, more that it was cutting it really fine.

I was doing some reading on this and there was a 24 year old doctor with a four year old child who went over there - maybe it was based on her.

I wonder why she didn't go to the British embassy (in Turkey?) to avoid a boat

Maybe she feared arrest and imprisonment in Turkey.

It did seem that she escaped easily. I think that wasn't realistic, just that they wanted to show what would happen if she came back. Realistically, they both would've been shot.

This was so good, does anyone else think they will make a second series?

I hope so. Apparently it took them 18 months to do the research for this, so I doubt we'll get anything soon, but I'm sure it'll still be relevant in a couple of years' time.

The GP is the most annoying because you would think that anyone with her exam results and an HCP can't be that much of an idiot and savage to boot. Wrong.

Rage- and disappointment-fuelled decisions like hers overrule her hard-won rationality. She would have made a brilliant Nazi. Although they would have finished her and Isaac off first, in Hitler's pov illegitimate children and their mothers weren't 'desirables'.

So many similarities between the Reich and IS.

We don't know Isaac was illegitimate. We know she was a feminist and broadminded enough to accept different sexualities. She could have gone anywhere in the world if she wanted to just help sick people - it was the building of a new Muslim state that interested her. She was a cold, hard woman and a terrible mother, I thought. (I keep forgetting it's not real!)