#GRANTED I havent read an extensive amount-I’ve read 6 different books about either chernobyl or radium/radiation and it’s history

[dykewilde]

praying to god hoping this doesn’t sound pretentious but the more I read about chernobyl and learn thru written firsthand experiences what it was like to live through this disaster + trying to get it under control….. I rlly hate the hbo series’s retelling of it. I think it’s fine as like a introduction to chernobyl but there’s many glaring inconsistencies and creative liberties that weren’t…. really necessary for the show to take. for example the radiation sickness that was shown onscreen was much more violent and accelerated than what would have affected the workers in the first episode. the famous bridge of death is an urban legend. the helicopter scene in the second episode that took place in may of 1986 showed it going down after it flew directly over the reactor (implying that the radiation made it drop from the sky) when in reality that happened on october 2nd in 1986 after one of the blades clipped a crane cable-this was caught on film and can be seen here. lyudmilla ignatenko didn’t go into labor after bending over on a park bench to get a child’s glove, she went into labor while she was visiting her husband’s grave (also sad to know that lyudmilla had to relocate from kiev after the show gained popularity and journalists were breathing down her neck to give them her time to speak with them). it’s been said before that the show took a lot of it’s inspiration from svetlana alexievich’s book voices from chernobyl, which absolutely shows in the emotional aspect of the show, but not so much for the factious parts, especially on the topic of radiation. of course there are parts that are true to a t in this show-anatoly dyatlov as shown in the last episode when there was a flashback to the start of april 25th did walk nearly everyday from his house to the plant as it was mentioned and sourced in midnight in chernobyl. soviet-born viewers have commented on the accuracy the wardrobes the characters wear and the recreation of pripyat have been as well as the control panel in reactor 4 being replicated button for button. actual recorded audio of emergency calls in the early morning of april 26th are used in the first episode. of course there are many, many other examples of both instances (truthful/based on truthful parts and false/exaggerated parts) but unfortunately the latter is so overpowering to me which is… disappointing to say the least. I think the best way to approach this series honestly is to take it with a grain of salt and know that it’s foundations settled on fact but it does like to stray many times from the source material to tell it’s own version.

also sorry but I’m petty and I cannot tell you how grating it is to click on a youtube vid that covers some aspect of chernobyl or pripyat or radiation with the interest of like. learning something and see people make funny “jokes” in the comments that are obviously influenced by them watching hbo’s chernobyl like “3.6 not great not terrible” “do you taste metal?” “I serve the soviet union” OR people think that because they watched an hbo series they’re nuclear scientists. its always a wall of 10-12 comments like this like my god can you just say “oh cool very interesting + nice vid!” or ask a relevant question or just say nothing and move on you are ANNOYING girl