Reply #94: While Hirohito was a figurehead...

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he didn't make a broadcast ordering surrender after Tokyo was firebombed, slaughtering a sizeable fraction of a million people (far more than either Nagasaki or Hiroshima, even including later deaths from radiation sickness). It took nuclear weapons, the likes of which had never been seen before and the level of destruction which was unheard of to bring it about. Once the bombs were dropped, and ONLY AFTER THAT, was he willing to make the statement and force the surrender.

While Hirohito didn't wield real power in government, he DID wield real power with the people.

The fact that you'd prefer to be incinerated alive rather than dying quickly if in a nuclear blast zone is touching...but makes me think you've never spent much time with people suffering from 3rd degree burns gotten from conventional methods. Both methods of death are bad...but being instantly vaporized is preferable, IMHO, to being set on fire and burning to death. And yes, lots of people died from the firebombings after a considerable period of time in excruciating pain. I've never interacted with people with radiation sickness...but I have had a fair bit of experience on a burn ward during the 1990's, and NOTHING can be worse than that. If you'd ever sat in on or helped with a debridement, you'd understand that.