Quote Originally Posted by allenw View Post
While I must admit that there are a few people, such as yourself, who have claimed it wasn't a Holocaust reference, I really can't see how how such a claim makes any sense.
Of course Rich was talking about the Holocaust. Even if the fact-pattern happens to also fit the Aztecs or whomever, referencing the Aztecs wouldn't serve the narrative purpose here, which was to quickly and definitively establish Malack as EVIL (a topic on which there was still spirited debate among his readership). The Aztecs may or may not have been evil, but the average reader is unlikely to have strong opinions about them.
So yes, Rich was obliquely referring to the Holocaust as a shorthand way of establishing a character as EVIL. It's not like he hasn't used Nazi's for a similar purpose before (and the phrase "kilonazis," at least, was undoubtedly a joke).

Where I differ from the original poster is that I don't think that using a Holocaust-analogue as a brief shorthand for Evil trivializes the Holocaust, its victims, or its perpetrators. If Rich intends even the briefest tangental reference to the gas chambers to shock people out of their belief that Malack might not be Evil, then that means that he considers it very significant indeed.
You appear to have the very unfortunate timing of being ninja'd by the Giant contradicting you.