Gilead - Blog Posts

Countryhumans: The Commanders of Gilead

Drew this back in December 2022 and finished it on April 13, 2024.

I wanted to draw the Commanders of Gilead from Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale in Countryhuman style. I wanted to make them as accurate as possible. *Yes, I also added Donald Trump because for my headcanon I'm working on for the Hulu series' alternate history, he's a Commander in Gilead* I previously drew my first Gilead design back in November 2022. At first, I liked it but now I don’t like the head since most Countryhumans have round heads like Countyballs. So, when I drew the Commanders, I wanted to make them more human-like heads than round but keep the style of Countryhumans like the white eyes

Commander Fred Waterford played by Joseph Fiennes

Commander Nick Blaine played by Max Minghella

Commander Joseph Lawerence played by Bradley Whitford

Commander Andrew Pryce played by Robert Curtis Brown

Commander Warren Putnam played by Stephen Kunken

Commander MacKenzie played by Jason Butler Harner

Commander Donald Trump as himself *obviously*

Commander George Winslow played by Christopher Meloni

Countryhumans: Republic of Gilead

Drew this a while back on November 22, 2022. This is the Republic of Gilead or simply just Gilead. He’s the fictional country from Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I wanted to draw him as a Countryhuman since I saw how popular the fandom is. I joined in to draw Gilead in CH style and gave him a bio. The person I based him on is Commander Fred Waterford, played by Joseph Fiennes.

For those who don’t know much about The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood. It’s set in a dystopia where the world suffers from low birth rates due to pollution that causes a fertility crisis. In the US, a Christian fundamentalist group called the Sons of Jacob or SOJ, a Puritan Christian group, violently did a coup in Washington DC on President's Day, by killing the President, Congress, and the rest of the Cabinet, to overthrow the US government. They seized power and transformed the former US into the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian patriarchal Christian theocracy that rules most of the former continental US. They strip away women’s rights and make them handmaids to be impregnated by their Commanders, who are the leaders of Gilead, for their barren wives. Their laws are based on the Bible, mainly the Old Testament for the authoritative laws against women.

In the Hulu series, it does the same element as the book but it is set in an alternate 2014 where the SOJ did the coup in Washington DC on September 11, 2014, by staging a terrorist attack to kill President Obama, Congress, and the Cabinet. The SOJ blamed the attack on Islamic extremist groups for the attack, quite possibly ISIS at the time of 2014. They then removed women's rights by first firing them, leaving them unemployed, freezing their bank accounts, not allowed to own property, and finally a nationwide abortion ban. All of these led to a 2nd Civil War from 2014 to 2017, as the setting for Season 1 of the series.

I already finished watching the series back in February 2023. I'm still waiting for the release of Season 6, which won't come out until next year due to the writer's strike last year. My mom got me hooked to watch this show. I mainly watched it for its alternate history since it talked about a fictional 2nd American Civil War.

It's a good show to watch. I highly recommend watching it as it parallels how US politics are right now.