blah the Prussian Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 So, recalling all the recent dystopias that have come out (Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.) I've noticed that none of them actually match real world evil at all. 1984' Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia were horrible, but that was published in 1948. Since then, I can't think of a single far future dictator that even approaches the evil of Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot. The closest atrocity I can think of is the Hunger Games, but really, in the grand scheme of things, having 24 children a year kill each other for sport isn't that bad compared to shit like the Holocaust. Honestly, dystopias in general are just losing their touch. They're no longer brutal, totalitarian tyrants, dystopias today are pretty much tinpot dictatorships with some prose thrown in. At this point, I'm just ranting though. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Oryx and Crake's world seemed pretty bad. Especially towards the end of the in-story timeline. Also, the early goldenbaum dynasty in logh seems to have been pretty awful (tons of purging of people who were considered unfit, many people sent to very harsh forced labor camps), though it's hard to tell the exact scale of it, since it's in the past of the show and not covered extensively. You might well be right about this. But I haven't been reading tons of stories in dystopia settings, so I'm not much of a judge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragoncat Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) I'm not much of a judge either. But I bet it has something to do with society's changing tastes in literature. A vast majority of the books we consider "classic" and have to read in school are set in the real world/aren't of the fantasy genre. Animal Farm I guess can count as fantasy because the characters are farm animals, but it's still way different. Today the most popular books are fantasy/sci fi or close to it. In 100 years I bet kids will be reading stuff like Harry Potter in school... The point I'm trying to make is, in fantasy or sci fi, you have to do other things and there's less focus on how evil the dictator is. More focus on worldbuilding and story stuffs. Hunger Games and Divergent are also doing that afaik. (haven't read either one) It might also have something to do with how they're aimed toward preteens/teens mostly...not saying that target audience can't understand the likes of evil dictators but yeah. As long as the villain is played off as this big bad evil dictator it works. Edited June 2, 2015 by Dragoncat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blah the Prussian Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) To be fair, the vast majority of dystopias are set in the real world as well. And I wasn't saying modern dystopias aren't evil, just that it's kind of telling that humanity actually tried something worse than what villains in children's stories dream up. The rise of fantasy is unfortunate, as it is much too easy to fall into a simple good vs evil formula in fantasy, but I digress. @Severlain: Oh yeah, I forgot about old Adol- I mean Rudolf von Goldenbaum. Then again, Rienhard does a pretty good job of averting the dystopia, so whatever floats your boat, I guess. I am not, however, farm iliac with Oryx and Crake. Edited June 2, 2015 by blah2127 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 (edited) In the Hunger Games, I think it was said that District 13 was totally nuked or something for defiance. If the movies follow the books, in Catching Fire, I think it's said at the end that District 12 also gets nuked. I haven't seen Mockingjay yet so... I don't know if you're just aiming at the young adult survival genre, but as far as general post-apocalyptic stories go, the main villain of the latest Mad Max movie was absolutely cruel and vicious, comparable to some of the worst dictators. Edited June 3, 2015 by Knight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 To be fair, the vast majority of dystopias are set in the real world as well. And I wasn't saying modern dystopias aren't evil, just that it's kind of telling that humanity actually tried something worse than what villains in children's stories dream up. The rise of fantasy is unfortunate, as it is much too easy to fall into a simple good vs evil formula in fantasy, but I digress. @Severlain: Oh yeah, I forgot about old Adol- I mean Rudolf von Goldenbaum. Then again, Rienhard does a pretty good job of averting the dystopia, so whatever floats your boat, I guess. I am not, however, farm iliac with Oryx and Crake. Ya, I mean, even before Reinhard becomes a major player it seems like the Goldenbaum Dynasty isn't as bad as it used to be (one small bit of actual evidence for that belief is that Oberstein is alive and in a somewhat prestigious position in the military even before he allies with Reinhard). I could be wrong about that though. It has been a long time since I read Oryx and Crake, but basically there is rampant poverty and corporations (and probably governments) whole up in fenced-in compounds. I don't think there are huge planned massacres like during the holocaust though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blah the Prussian Posted June 3, 2015 Author Share Posted June 3, 2015 In the Hunger Games, I think it was said that District 13 was totally nuked or something for defiance. If the movies follow the books, in Catching Fire, I think it's said at the end that District 12 also gets nuked. I haven't seen Mockingjay yet so... I don't know if you're just aiming at the young adult survival genre, but as far as general post-apocalyptic stories go, the main villain of the latest Mad Max movie was absolutely cruel and vicious, comparable to some of the worst dictators. Again, though it isn't really comparable to atrocities like the Holocaust or the killing fields. I am not, meanwhile, familiar with Mad Max, but it wouldn't surprise me; it seems quite gritty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emblempride Posted June 8, 2015 Share Posted June 8, 2015 Them Stars Wars killed all of them Jedis. Urgh, never been a fan of YA fiction but The Gift had ethnic cleansing. I think replicating real-world evil or attempting to match it is a difficult thing to do, which is weird when we've had the fucking Holocaust. It's like you're either trying to ohard or the effort just isn't there. Sometimes, for some strange reason, you'll get a story where a 15-year-old girl is the chosen one or whatever and single-handedly saves everything. It always goes to shit in some way. I think dystopias are more successful when they're just plain unnerving, see The Trial. That's some terrifying stuff right there. 1984 is really the only example I can think of where extreme evil really worked as a societal dictator, surreal, dreamy stuff like Blade Runner and "entire world is in ruins" dystopias don't really need a prevailing evil to create a sense of dread. Actually, now that I think about it, Atlas Shrugged is pretty evil in just about every way you can imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irony Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 To be fair, the vast majority of dystopias are set in the real world as well. And I wasn't saying modern dystopias aren't evil, just that it's kind of telling that humanity actually tried something worse than what villains in children's stories dream up. The rise of fantasy is unfortunate, as it is much too easy to fall into a simple good vs evil formula in fantasy, but I digress. @Severlain: Oh yeah, I forgot about old Adol- I mean Rudolf von Goldenbaum. Then again, Rienhard does a pretty good job of averting the dystopia, so whatever floats your boat, I guess. I am not, however, farm iliac with Oryx and Crake. Not all fantasy stories have a simple good vs evil formula. Whilst I'm not an expert on the series, I don't think Dragon Age has a straight good vs evil morality. I will admit though, a lot of fantasy does have good vs evil. Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings... I guess it provides simple escapism that doesn't require the reader/viewer/listener to think too deeply about themselves and human nature in general. After all, some novels do provide rather..disturbing thoughts of what humanity is like, and I guess some people don't enjoy hearing those thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 As far as books go yeah I agree. Others I would add to the list: Farenheit 451 kinda disturbing to think that its against the law to read and all the world's knowledge is just burnt away and the only way to preserve it is to memorize the book word for word. The Giver. Same kind of theme that 451 has but far more disturbing and shows how society in its attempt to prevent anything bad from occuring by getting rid of free will ends up even worse. While books seem to be lacking in recent years other mediums such as film certainly are not. Take Terminator for instance. In an effort to make combat a thing of the past and prevent cyber attacks we entrust everything to a computer program that nukes all of humanity doesn't get much worse than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerosabers Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Honestly the Hunger Games is the only one I'd even consider a dystopia out of Divergent and other YA books. @LordTaco, The Giver is probably my favorite book about a dystopia. It is extremely disturbing at points. Unfortunately the movie is a complete rip off of literally every YA dystopia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blah the Prussian Posted June 13, 2015 Author Share Posted June 13, 2015 As far as books go yeah I agree. Others I would add to the list: Farenheit 451 kinda disturbing to think that its against the law to read and all the world's knowledge is just burnt away and the only way to preserve it is to memorize the book word for word. The Giver. Same kind of theme that 451 has but far more disturbing and shows how society in its attempt to prevent anything bad from occuring by getting rid of free will ends up even worse. While books seem to be lacking in recent years other mediums such as film certainly are not. Take Terminator for instance. In an effort to make combat a thing of the past and prevent cyber attacks we entrust everything to a computer program that nukes all of humanity doesn't get much worse than that. I would have to vehemently disagree with you about the Giver and Fahrenheit 451. 451 literally just rips off one of the things that the Nazis did that wasn't as bad as some of the other things they did. My main problem with that book is that it is such a ridiculous "reading is fun!" author tract. As for the giver, killing children is kind of bad; the dystopia itself is bad, but the issue is that said dystopia is just a single town. It's too small scale for any of the atrocities to have a horrific amount of casualties. It didn't help that I found the characters of the Giver to be quite uninteresting, so I didn't really care if they escaped or not. Agree with you about Terminator, though. Them Stars Wars killed all of them Jedis. Urgh, never been a fan of YA fiction but The Gift had ethnic cleansing. I think replicating real-world evil or attempting to match it is a difficult thing to do, which is weird when we've had the fucking Holocaust. It's like you're either trying to ohard or the effort just isn't there. Sometimes, for some strange reason, you'll get a story where a 15-year-old girl is the chosen one or whatever and single-handedly saves everything. It always goes to shit in some way. I think dystopias are more successful when they're just plain unnerving, see The Trial. That's some terrifying stuff right there. 1984 is really the only example I can think of where extreme evil really worked as a societal dictator, surreal, dreamy stuff like Blade Runner and "entire world is in ruins" dystopias don't really need a prevailing evil to create a sense of dread. Actually, now that I think about it, Atlas Shrugged is pretty evil in just about every way you can imagine. I'm inclined to agree with you on this, especially about 1984. However, the Jedi were self righteous pricks, they had it coming XD. I haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but yeah, any society in which people are willing to listen to a guy talk for like 6 hours is pretty evil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 (edited) any society in which people are willing to listen to a guy talk for like 6 hours is pretty evil. Hey. I admit I'm not sure if they did it for that long at once (I've normally been told they would read a particular section), but what about oral tradition poets performing great epics such as the Iliad? Paaarty! Edited June 17, 2015 by Severlan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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