This is a really weird post. The thrust appears to be a contrarian desire to portray the Soviet government as capable and competent, and I wonder if it's the author's naivete or some sort of an agenda. The post latches on small discrepancies, but somehow ignores the entire impetus of Legasov's tapes. He sure didn't record them to praise the government:

"And when I visited the Chernobyl station after the accident and saw what was happening there, I myself drew a precise and unequivocal conclusion, that the Chernobyl disaster is an apotheosis, the pinnacle of all the mismanagement that has been carried out for decades in our country."

The show is obviously a "based on a true story" dramatization that invented personas, added tension where little existed, and so forth. But the overall thesis checks out: it was a massive failure of governance before the disaster and during it, including the well-documented fact that the Soviets were initially withholding information from the rest of the world and turning down aid.

It's funny that this series seems as if it is being confused as a documentary. It was a dramatic telling of a story. Creative licensing was in full effect. The first item in the "Series VS tapes: point by point" is a very common use of that creative licensing. Trying to follow multiple people in a work like this gets tiring and a bit boring. The details are kept, but it's easier to follow when those multiple people are written as one character. It's why the term "littleuns" was used in Lord of The Flies as the individuals were not important to the story, just the fact they were there and needed to be considered allowed the story to not get bogged down.

The series was also told completely in ~8 hours of content, yet this event clearly took longer than 8 hours to play out. Why no critique on that?

> Legasov commended the swiftness and efficiency of the government response at all levels

Sure, but in those times, he would be compelled to say such things. That doesn't mean he believed it.

It seems the main faults that OP finds in the show are that Legasov had issues with his government, when in "reality" he thought they were great. But is that "reality," or oppression?

I also don't see the fault in highlighting him as the "main" scientist; it's a show.

It was a good show. I've re-watched it a couple of times. The actors are excellent, and it's well-done.

I take it for granted that a lot of it was amped up for drama, but other sources (several documentaries) seem to agree on a lot of the actions and timelines. The show added motivations, and some fictional characters.

I also enjoyed Dopesick, and that's a subject that I have direct experience and knowledge of. I have pretty much the same issues with that show.

But I still enjoyed both of them as dramas.

If I want facts, I'll do my own research.

M. Gessen wrote a much better piece about the accuracy of HBO's Chernobyl:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-cher...

This piece seems a little confused, since Legasov wasn't the primary source for the show?

>It was about Anatoly Grishchenko, a Soviet helicopter pilot who had served in Chernobyl and, like many others, had developed cancer as a result.

If there's one thing that pissed me off about the TV series, it was its poor to non-existent storytelling surrounding the helicopter crews who ran sortie after sortie right over the burning reactor—around the clock—knowing full well the grave risks posed by the radiation.

Instead, we were shown one disjointed helicopter crash scene amidst a still-burning reactor that made them look like bumbling fools attempting something futile.

In real life, the Chernobyl incident happened on 26 April, 1986. The Mi-8 crash where it struck the crane didn't happen until October 2nd, 1986.

Aviation was instrumental in containing the disaster during its early phases. Those crews helped save an untold number of lives. Their portrayal or lack thereof in the show was massively disrespectful to their contributions.

---

Between 27 April and 1 May, about 1800 helicopter flights deposit over 5,000 metric tons of sand, lead, clay, and neutron absorbing boron onto the burning reactor. It is now known that virtually none of the neutron absorbers reached the core. [0]

[0] https://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline...

To be honest, I find most of these inconsistencies to be inconsequential for enjoying the film. The ones that really get to me though are the dramatic overestimates on the devastation caused by Chernobyl, and the effects of the radiation itself. Most of the effect of the film comes from this belief that the radiation really is that dangerous. When you know it isn't, it takes quite a bit away from the premise.

The bit about "The water tanks in the reactor were full, and the uranium fuel rods were at risk of melting through the water tanks, potentially releasing a force equivalent to a multi-megaton nuclear device and devastating much of Europe with radiation." is sort of complex to judge.

It is absolutely true that that scenario was impossible and couldn't actually happen. But as far as we can tell (documented in Voices of Chernobyl) someone at a similar meeting to the one portrayed in the TV show did really say that that could happen as portrayed in the TV show. But of course the audience is going to assume that things scientists say in shows like this are accurate.

There is a podcast [1] featuring the showrunner Craig Mazin who is also a very conscientious and prolific podcaster [2] who cares deeply about balancing fact with a compelling narrative.

This is the basic difference between "based on" and documentary. Having worked as a screenwriter myself I can assure you that even if the script had been 100% factual, things would have been changed beyond the creators' control anyway.

1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chernobyl-podcast/...

2 https://scriptnotes.net/

I think we need to also debunk the debunking.

You know, some of us were already living then and it is not some distant event we have no knowledge of.

For example:

> Re: The soviet government did not want to evacuate the town of Pripyat

> Debunking: Legasov indicated the opposite. He said that the decision to evacuate was made quickly, even though the levels of radiation in the town were not considered to be dangerous.

WTF? The level of radiation was not considered to be dangerous when your reactor was blown open? Are you fucking kidding?

> Re: The government made an effort to conceal everything regarding the accident and what was happening.

> Legasov stated that this was not the case, and that information was not provided at the time because it didn't exist. The situation was very confusing, and information was scarce, coming from multiple conflicting sources and estimates, making it difficult to collect, filter, and access the correct information.

The accident happened on 26 April 1986, and on the 1st of May, _4 days later_ there was a celebration of Labour Day - a mandatory parade in Kyiv within just 100 km. And no-one knew about the disaster from the official sources. Only people with access to foreign radio knew about the disaster, others were happily marching with red flags on the streets breathing polluted air.

And so on, and so forth...

He claims that they had all the equipment ready and knew the actual levels, but at the same time were confused and information was scarce, and the level of radiation were not that bad - it this some type of propaganda for the dumb?

I'm currently writing my own expose on the historical inaccuracies in the Harry Potter series.

As a piece of writing it does not come across as sober or thoughtful. Rather it’s filled with mixed metaphors, hyperbole, and leaps of logic.

No indications the real-life event was an _act of god_ or _natural disaster_. The HBO series is a dramatization of human error, and stands or falls on the merits of fiction.

In other words—Sorry you didn’t like this dramatization of the disaster. As other said, it’s not a documentary.

At the end of the day, creators want an entertaining show and that usually requires intrigue, interpersonal conflict, character growth, good vs. evil, etc.

Biopics/dramatizations of events often bring multiple minor characters together into a single person.

I would be more bothered by the change of small details irrelevant to the narrative than I am by larger character changes. I would prefer that the mainline details stay the same - chain of events, impact to the town, aftermath - but I am not watching the series in order to write a paper. I appreciate the articles which document the fiction vs. reality of historical dramas, but I do not share in any anger. Then again, I'm not related to anyone whose character was represented in the series.

Shakespeare's Richard III also inaccurate.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2013-02-07-source-shakespeares-ina...

Dyatlov's interview from the 90s, which is still available on youtube [1], seems to fit better with the account given in the hit book "Midnight in Chernobyl" (which was the basis for the series,) than the story written for TV. To me the series just seemed like a rehash of the same movie tropes we've seen time and time again in dramatizations of the accident, compared to a true adaptation of book, which included a lot of updated analysis beyond the IAEA original report.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8__v9EswN4

Hey Omar! I met you briefly in Grenoble many years ago. I hope you're doing well.

I only recently watched this series and found it very entertaining. But I never expected it to be very accurate. It's definitely been dramatized for TV. I definitely didn't get an anti-nuclear sentiment from the show, I mostly think they were trying to portray a negative view of Soviet Bureaucracy.

It's a dramatization, of course there are going to be liberties taken and creative license used to further the (TFA might say contrived) story.

One thing not mentioned in TFA, though, is how those suffering from radiation sickness (first responders like the firefighter Ignatenko, etc.) are portrayed almost as if they are contagious, and so should not be touched. The Chernobyl series is not the only one to do this, either, and it can lead to viewers thinking radiation sickness is something you can "catch" from someone else.

I don't know why they never make it clear that it's for the sake of the sickened themselves that contact should be minimized (assuming all contaminated clothing etc. has already been discarded), since their immune and other internal systems are totally compromised by radiation poisoning.

The government response to the disaster was slow and inadequate. It sure was they denied it actually happened for a pretty long time.

Whether or not it was 100% correct it was depressing and brutally dark. Even the music was perfect for it. The fact it’s based on truth makes it even darker.

Nit pick after nit pick

Legit question... I have not watched it. Is it actually good on it's own merits?

> It’s like we’ve chosen to ignore the truth in favor of a good story or a good feeling.

Aww, man. I've got some bad news for you about literally any fact you know that isn't derived from math. And even that is still, philosophically, just some stories we're telling ourselves about the observations we're all seeing.

How can a work of fiction about a real-world event have a myth?

The main issue is what the Soviet government did before the disaster even happened. Someone, in the series it is implied it was a student, in Legasov's institution wrote a paper about what the risks was when AZ-5 was pressed. Apparently there was even a suggested redesign for the rods that would mitigate the risk (but it required lowering the maximum power output for the reactor, and thus required building more reactors, and so would increase the cost of the nuclear program by maybe 10-20%)

The Soviet government did something to shut that person up (and in the series Legasov implies he was part of that, I can't even find what he did exactly), repressed the knowledge (declaring it a state secret) ... and then a decade later Chernobyl exploded.

In other words: what happened is that the Soviet government refused to fix their nuclear reactors due to cost, and then that decision blew up Chernobyl, making tens to hundreds of thousands of victims.

Then, during the cleanup of the disaster, the KGB took additional measures to keep it hidden.

So yes it was oppression ... oppression is the cause of the disaster in the first place. And you can't forget that Legasov is not a hero: his career was built on oppression, not scientific accomplishment (there was a Soviet program to make sure Jewish students would fail at the institute. Legasov was the one implementing that). So of course Legasov can't be trusted.

Who knows, maybe the student who wrote that AZ-5 would blow up the reactor in the first place was one of the Jewish students whose career Legasov sabotaged.

> It seems the main faults that OP finds in the show are that Legasov had issues with his government, when in "reality" he thought they were great. But is that "reality," or oppression?

The tapes were framed in the HBO as an honest message of a dying man to the world to expose the lies that happened. Well, after Going through the tapes, I couldn't find any indication of that...only the opposite.

Now I concede that I don't really know what actually happened, and one can't put a price on the intensity of the situation for everyone at that time.

My point is simple: HBO series said Legasov's position was something that wasn't true

I've mentioned her article. I think she barely touched the topic of Chernobyl itself. Her points was about what the Soviet life was back then, and some depictions of this was incorrect.

For example (for her article)

> In Episode 2, for example, the Central Committee member Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) threatens to have Legasov shot if he doesn’t tell him how a nuclear reactor works. There are a lot of people throughout the series who appear to act out of fear of being shot. This is inaccurate: summary executions, or even delayed executions on orders of a single apparatchik, were not a feature of Soviet life after the nineteen-thirties. By and large, Soviet people did what they were told without being threatened with guns or any punishment.

Her point was: this is not the Soviet way back then. My point is: these two people barely interacted directly, and one of them at least (Legasov) had a lot of respect for the other from the very beginning

The show makes reference to "Midnight in Chernobyl" in its epilogue, I think it's safe to say it was one of the main sources of information for the show (though of course they took liberties because it was a historical drama).

But which was it? Was “aviation instrumental in containing the disaster” or did “virtually none of the neutron absorbers” reach the core? Those are both quotes from your post.

In literal or figurative battles, there are plenty of examples of actions that are simultaneously indisputably brave and utterly futile.

I agree there are some claims in this article that should be further scrutinized but it's true that the levels of radiation were not as high as one might assume. The direction of the wind during and immediately following the disaster slowed the spread of radioactive material over Pripyat (this is also why southern Belarus was hit so hard). The prevailing winds in that region are north east and the Chernobyl power plant was on the north side of the city. By the time of the May day parade the winds had shifted such that Kiev was downwind from Chernobyl.

The KGB did their best to contain information about the disaster in general and the USSR wanted the May day parade to go on as-planned to make it look like things were fine. Even those with enough power or connections to be aware of the danger were pressured to participate. The May day parade was later often referred to in infamy by the Ukrainian independence movement following the disaster.

Most of my information comes from what I remember of reading "Midnight in Chernobyl" and "Chernobyl the History of a Nuclear Disaster"

I think too often these historical "debunking" exercises are really just exercises in overzealously uncharitable interpretation. Some of the distinctions drawn are asinine especially in the context of a dramatic presentation. And some are even importantly wrong, as you've now pointed out which I wouldn't have thought of on a skim-by reading.

Just like we have functional literacy and information literacy, there should be such a thing as Debunking Literacy. Are you actually debunking or just uncharitably interpreting?