Answers

As you well know, I try and learn about upcoming holidays. Usually I start sixty days in advance, because of the rule of "Shloshim Yom Kodim Lifnei Hachag", which means that thirty days before thirty days before the festival you should take things to extremes and immerse yourself in G-d. Or something like that. Anyway, the Almighty Editor asked a question on Purim. What exactly was the great Mesiras Nefesh of the Jewish people that saved them from the decree of the wicked Haman? According to the books, the reason the Jews were not exterminated was because of their great faith, that not a single one even thought about converting during the entire year leading up to Purim, despite their knowledge of the upcoming massacre that was planned. The Almighty Editor asks though, what's the big deal? Haman was dead and buried for most of the year anyway!
The thought occurred to me that we might be able to compare this to the situation the United States found itself in following President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination in 1963, or his brother Robert's in 1968. Imagine if Barack Hussein Obama was to be assassinated? You'd have the Rodney King riots times ten within twenty minutes. The country would go crazy. The anger of the proletariat would sweep through the states, killing the bourgeois within minutes.
Now let's go back to the streets of Shushan so many years ago. Haman is killed, and his loyal followers are angry. No, that's an understatement. They seethed with the burning rage of a thousand suns, compelled to exact vengeance on their mortal enemies, wiping out the Jews like vermin at a pest-control convention. So yeah, the Jews had reason to be afraid. Sure, everyone knew that the King's wife was a Jewess herself, but that would only inflame the populace. That the Jews kept their faith was extraordinary.
Does this answer the question? Possibly. Or possibly not.