realizations aren't quite so grand as you planned

Joe realizes at the end of the novel that democracy is not worth fighting for because democracy is not a concrete idea and democracy is what is making him fight. He hates that they are makign him fight. He is fighting and fighting for something that he doesnt believe in and when he realizes this he turns the gun that they gave him to fight on them. He turns the gun on the people who are making him fight. These people aren't even fighting for themselves, they are making people fight for them. THis is why Joe turns the gun on them.

and we'll keep on fighting to the end?

Joe just wants to get out of the hospital and get back to America. He wants to show people the horrors of the war and he wants to show people that they shouldn’t fight a war if they don’t know what they are fighting for, if the people who are telling you want to fight for aren’t even fighting, what is the point of fighting. He wants you to fight for the right not to fight.
If I were in this position I really don’t know what I would actually do. I’m not a fan of saying ‘I would do this’ because I have no idea if I would really do that. That may be the ideal. It could be what I would want to do, what I would hope to do. But I have no idea if that’s what I would really do. I would hope that I would be wanting to fight for my right to fight. Like Joe, I do think you need a concrete thing to be fighting for and not an abstract idea. Although life is not a concrete idea, if I was lying in a hospital bed, perhaps in Britain, with no arms, no legs, no face, I would fight for my life. I would not let myself die. I would not want my spirit to die. Joe does this too by deciding that he would turn the gun on those making him fight. I would like to think I would turn the gun on those telling me I wasn’t supposed to survive.

oh hey buddy, we dont give two shits about you

He wants to be an exhibit to show the horrors of war so that he can make money for himself so he can be sent back to America. It’s against regulation because they don’t want people to see the horrors of war. Its not really against regulation but the hospital just doesn’t want to deal with him. They want him out of sight out of mind. He doesn’t matter to anyone and this bothers him. It is even worse because they listen to his wants once they figure out his Morse code communication and then when they say no, they don’t just say no and crush his thought, but they sedate him so they don’t have to deal with him. He then realizes that he really does wish he was dead.

hey guess what. youre screwed

Joe is basically screwed. He has no arms, no legs, no face, and he is deaf. He has no way to communicate, at all. No one knows what he wants or his thoughts or feelings. He doesn’t know what day it is, what time of year or what to do. He is basically dead. It is hard for him because he is trapped in his own mind. He knows he is going to go crazy if he can’t figure out the difference between when he is sleeping and dreaming and when he is awake and conscious of his thoughts. He figures out a way to tell what time of day it is by listening for the nurses. He decides to teach himself something new every chance he can. This helps him from going insane, but he still can’t communicate which is the most difficult thing for him.

gender issues

In the musical, which was pretty good fyi, there were some distinctive gender roles. Of course there was the Queen as the overbearing mother who was in charge of everything and almost overly in control. You would think this was about a strong woman figure, but everyone hates her. To me this shows that women arent suposed to be powerful. They are supposed to be strong and stand up for themselves, but they arent supposed to be powerful. Winnifred is a strong woman, I mean she SWAM the moat for God sakes. But she is looked down upon by some as not womanly enough. She is not powerful though which makes her liked unlike the Queen. The King isnt allowed speak because of the 'curse' or whatever that deal was, but it represented the fact that the Queen was so overbearing. Because the Queen was such a psycho, the Prince was extremely meak. He wasn't manly! but thats why the manly Fred and the Prince made such a good couple.