In this strip, Hima touches on the morbid theme of
immortality and how painful it would be to live forever. The strip begins with
a young man dreaming of a childhood memory of a time spent with his
grandfather. There, his grandfather shows him a photo that he took with France
when he was just 18 years old.

After being woken up, we find out that in the present day of
the strip, the young man is working in Paris. When he sees that France hasn’t
aged since the time the photo was taken, he impulsively confronts France and asks
him why this is.

France’s answer, true to his philosophical history, gives a
vague and abstract explanation. Basically, to break it down, he states that the
nation is to be thought of as a ship; the government as the mast; the citizens
as the wind; and the sea as time itself.

If there’s a good wind blowing and the mast is straight,
then the country will keep pushing forward. In other words, as long as the
people (the wind) keep believing in and identifying with the nation and that
the government (the mast) is still functioning properly, then the nation’s
existence and immortality shall continue.

He also states that
the ship can get stranded, which I interpret as the nation losing their
nationhood (immortality); they’re no longer able to push forward having lost
this status via annexation, military occupation, or any other forms of
abolishment.

However, France also comments that if there’s someone to fix
the ship, then you can keep using it forever.

Fix the ship – the
nation – huh? That’s odd, because if you look two panels up again,
there’s a small dialogue bubble that says:

“A wise German said that.”

That’s weird. A wise German…could he be talking about
Prussia? It wouldn’t make sense for the German to be human. Humans don’t have
the first-hand experience of understanding what it’s like to be a nation, so it
would be difficult for them to comment on the process.

There’s also the fact that if you touch on the Germany-Holy
Rome reincarnation theory, it falls directly in line with France’s explanation.
When the Holy Roman Empire dissolved, the separate sovereign German states and
their respective German people still remained. They didn’t just get up and
disappear. It was the state that disappeared, hence the immensely clever title:
“Though I May Depart, You Shall Remain.”

Holy Roman Empire died because he represented the fragmented
and uncoordinated unison of those separate sovereign states. Then, nearly
seventy years later, Prussia united those states to form one sovereign nation –
Germany. Could it be that this example is where France is getting his knowledge
of nationhood from?

Just think about it. Prussia fixed the ship that was German
national identity and united the people into one sovereign nation – Germany.
Before, the Holy Roman Empire’s governance was weak, therefore the mast wasn’t
held up straight. But, with one sole government, the German Confederation
became stronger. It wasn’t the lack of people that was a problem for the Holy
Roman Empire; it was simply a matter of a weakened state.

This is why I believe that Germany was born as a child –
rather than a baby – and already had an existing body. He was resurrected from
his time spent as Holy Rome, and since his people and their history had already
developed, he started from where he had left off before dying. Although, it’s
still a bit wishy-washy why he wouldn’t retain his memories from before…

To wrap things up, it would seem that Prussia fixed the ship
of German identity, united it into one, and then straightened the mast of
governance by centralizing it.

Following this logic, because Prussia united Germany, he was
able to bring back his brother. The people always remained, but with the state
situation stabilized, the personification was able to exist again.

Perhaps this is why France claims that the ship can exist
forever…as long as it’s fixed. The people never left, but the state did.