Watching History with a Question Mark

By Tyron Devotta

The Other Side of History — Part Two

A political thriller and a royal drama might seem unlikely companions to a novel about the Japanese attack on Ceylon in 1942. Yet Netflix’s The Diplomat and The Crown help explain why imagined stories can deepen our interest in politics and history—and why we must remain alert to the boundaries between invention and evidence.

In my earlier article, I explored the thinking behind Day of the Sun God: the possibility of using fiction to examine the circumstances surrounding an invasion that never came. That inquiry belongs to a wider habit of mind. We ask what might have happened, what could have been said behind closed doors, and how a different decision might have changed an outcome.

Television brings that habit into our living rooms.

For me, The Diplomat is a “what if?” story. Its fictional political world becomes a stage on which competing interests, personal ambitions and international anxieties can be brought into collision. Netflix describes it as a contemporary political drama concerned with relationships between countries and people.[1] Its value as a thought experiment lies in the questions those relationships allow us to ask.

What if a government’s preferred response to a crisis protected its own position while exposing its allies to danger? What if a leader’s political survival became entangled with a decision affecting millions? What if the person trying to prevent escalation misunderstood the intentions of the person across the table?

These are hypothetical questions, rather than claims about particular governments. They nevertheless direct attention towards recognisable problems of power.

For a student of political history, such drama can offer a starting point for examining how decisions are made under pressure. National interest may conflict with international stability. Public declarations may conceal bargaining positions. Intelligence may be incomplete, and leaders may disagree about what the same information means.

The educational value comes from examining those tensions. A compelling episode can prompt a useful discussion about incentives and consequences. It cannot establish how real diplomacy invariably works. Writers can arrange a crisis so that one revelation explains everything; actual events may remain confused, contested and shaped by institutions that no single individual controls.

Even the description “rogue nation” deserves scrutiny. Who applies the label, by what standard, and with what political purpose? An unpredictable leader can increase uncertainty, but an explanation built entirely around personality may overlook military interests, bureaucratic pressures, economic constraints and domestic constituencies.

A thoughtful viewer can enjoy the drama while questioning the explanation it offers.

The Crown makes a different demand on that viewer. Its characters are recognisable historical figures, and its narrative follows events associated with the reign of Elizabeth II. Netflix explicitly presents the series as fictional dramatisation inspired by real events.[2] That distinction is central to how it should be watched.

A documented public appearance and an imagined private exchange may sit beside each other in the same episode. The setting, costumes and performances give both scenes a comparable appearance of authenticity. Their evidential status can be very different.

Here the question becomes: what if this was what someone said, feared or intended?

Such invention can make the pressures of public duty and private life emotionally intelligible. It also carries a risk: a memorable scene may remain in our minds as a recollection of history, even when its dialogue or interpretation belongs to the screenwriter.

The series can therefore acquire the authority of an unofficial biography in the public imagination. That authority should be questioned. It is a dramatic interpretation of the Windsors, rather than a substitute for biographies, archives or competing historical accounts.

Nor does the absence of a public rebuttal from the Royal Household authenticate a scene. Silence cannot establish that an imagined conversation occurred.

This is where the maturity of the audience matters. Taking a drama with a pinch of salt means maintaining curiosity about its foundations. Which events are documented? Which motives are inferred? Which encounters have been invented? What alternative interpretation might another writer offer?

There is also an important distinction between these forms of storytelling. The Diplomat explores fictional political possibilities. The Crown dramatises a recorded past, including private moments the historical record may not disclose. Counterfactual history, more strictly, changes an established event or condition and examines what might follow. All three invite imagination, but they make different agreements with their audiences.

That distinction helps clarify my own undertaking in Day of the Sun God. An invented explanation for an actual outcome remains speculative historical fiction unless it also changes what is known to have happened. Its plausibility can encourage inquiry; it cannot turn invention into proof.

The writer has a responsibility to make that agreement clear. Viewers and readers have a corresponding opportunity: to enter the imagined world fully, then return to the evidence with better questions.

We need not believe that a scene happened to find it illuminating. We need to understand what it allows us to examine—and where its authority ends.

Edited with artificial intelligence. 

Sources

1. Netflix Media Center, The Diplomat: https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/81288983

2. Netflix Tudum, “How accurate is The Crown? Go inside the show’s royal research”: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/the-crown-season-5-accurate

Read Part 1 here