Basically just the Hunger Games and its knock-offs. Patreon: www.patreon.com/JamesTullos Twitter: ForTullos goodreads: www.goodreads.com/user/show/21076860-james-tullos
1984 is kind of a mess, honestly. I feel like it gets overlooked in terms of how rough and muddled it actually is in terms of writing, characterization especially. Also, if you have to put an entire chapter of an in-universe book in YOUR book just to explain the worldbuilding, it ain't that great.
@@chapteronefrog You're making the mistake of thinking that the hunger games was good beyond the setting. Dialogue, motivation and story all go in a bad direction quite fast. World-building seems promising until a certain event just destroys the entire world for dumb surprise.
the absolute funniest thing about the hunger games to me is that Mexico is just still there. I like to imagine only the US and canada went to hell, and the rest of the world is just doing alright. There's people killing each other in the streets, and the rest of the world is just staring at them I'm confusion.
It’s like in The Handmaid’s Tale, when there are a couple of Asian (I believe? It’s been a while) tourists visiting Gilead early on in the book and showing you that uh. Yeah no the outside world didn’t develop in the same way. All that shit really just went down in the US 💀💀💀 The difference between THT and most dystopian YA being that it was clearly an intentional move on Atwood’s part, whereas a lot of US-American YA authors tend to forget that there even is a world outside the USA.
Biggest problem with that book is that the author never pointed out the geography other than Denver being the Capitol and District 12 being in Appalachia. Though from reading it, I got the impression that the Districts were more glorified city states, not huge regions like people make maps of.
As someone who's not read the books or seen the movies I'm assuming it became "The Wilds" after the Direwolves had enough and toppled the Canadian Government.
Based on the population, district 12 couldn't have been more than a city state. I figured they mined out a coal vein and moved. The wilds were just the undeveloped area of 12
I remember reading this when I was younger. She was named that because her father was kind of a political radical who secretly opposed the monarchy.... Like, dude. Way to out yourself AND your daughter
@@riley8385 At least one "NYT Best Seller" made the list while selling less than 5,000 copies, and most are apparently in the 10,000 to 100,000 range. "Best Seller" is an intentionally misleading label; the list isn't based on sales figures but is rather populated with the titles the creators of the list decide to spotlight or recommend to readers. Higher sales figures just make it more likely that list creators will notice your book exists. You can apparently "buy" your way onto list just by buying around 10,000-20,000 copies of your own book, or paying organizations to do it for you. If you aren't on good terms with the list creators, or appear to push an agenda counter to that of the list creators, you might find your book fails to appear on their list, or to stay on the list, even if your sales are spectacular. If you are on good terms with the list creators, or are employed by them, or just back any agendas they favor pushing, then you may see a longer than normal run on their best sellers list.
@@eugenideddis There was such a case, but from various accounts it was far from the only such incident of someone buying their way onto a best seller list. There are even consultant or "promotional" groups you can hire that will buy thousands of copies of your book across various states, to make it less obvious.
So you're saying my setting doesn't have to be plausible to be popular? Sweet, time to abandon my economic, political, geographic, and social research to focus on the angsty love triangle instead.
Guys I’ve got an original book idea. So basically, there’s a dystopian society. It’s bad. Everyone’s the same, except for they aren’t because they are in a group. It all sucks until one lone individual rises up and begins a rebellion and it turns out every single damn person in the country hates the dystopia except for the supreme leader or emperor or president or some shit. Then, the war continues for 2 or so books and then in book 3 it ends, and the entire government is dissolved in about an hour and everything is great from then on.
Yassss 🎉🎉🎉 don’t forget the dark clothing, the technological advancements,,, the love triangle and the girl whose gonna lead that rebellion who’s “oh so quirky 🛥🛥”
I love Maze runner but seriously, they could just plug the kids into an advanced virtual reality & gauge the reaction from that. Even 10% of the maze's funding may have been enough to develop this reality.
@@feritperliare2890 im not really too sure, i just know that it's real-life kids who put on vr headsets and started playing the game between other kids in a competition
My main complaint about most dystopian worldbuilding is that it's so shallow. What you see is exactly what you get. The authoritarian government is never evil for a reason uncovered in the book. Nope, it's just evil. The arbitrary laws never have logical reasons behind them. That's just the way things are. The caste systems or bizarre gimmicks have no purpose beyond making the world seem different. The rebels are unquestionably the good guys. There's never complexity that makes you wonder what the best path is. It's laid out for you. It's like a kid's show where the villain is called Professor Evil, and he twirls his moustache while cackling over how he's going to destroy those annoying Heroes with his sinister plan. No surprises, no depth.
Even though it's not logical, I think The Maze Runner does actually try to introduce reasons beyond "they're just evil" to the oppressive government's actions. It's to find the cure. They fully realize their cruelty but have convinced themselves it's a necessary evil to save humanity. It's an interesting question, the lengths decent people would go to in order to prevent the end of humanity/the world. Obviously as James said the logic of brain scanning to find immunity is questionable, but there was an attempt to make the villains more layered.
mm, i would argue that the hunger games at least tangentially confronts whether or not the rebels are "good guys", what with president coin and all that (though it does fall into pretty much other flaw you've pointed out here to be fair)
Try Skyward, it's scifi, not a dystopia. It's pretty good imo, but I can't go into details without spoiling it, so *spoilers* : the reason humanity is trapped in a desolated world is because we were dicks in an intergalactic war and tried to take over the galaxy. It's not so much a prison planet but an echological santuary to preserve the human species, because aliens don't think it's ethical to drive other species extint.
@@imygurl08 The Maze Runner makes more sense if you think that the scientist that organized the whole experiment were already affected by the Flare and couldn't reason properly.
To this day, the only YA novel I remember was one where it started off cliche as hell, but then the protagonist rebel girl realized that overthrowing the government meant she was now in control, and the rest of the book is just her hunting down her rebel friends and realize that being a tyrannical dictator is awesome
Me too. For some incomprehensible reason I used to adore most of these books and revered them as great literature. Especially The Selection… unfortunately.
Funny how America is the only place that apparently "makes sense" when talking about divisions and diversity in these books, and then we have: "aSiA" "aFrIcA" "sOuTh aMeRiCa" "eUroPe"
@@riley8385 I don't know. Although it's more likely to happen than an entire Africa or Europe country, the countries are still pretty different from each other. Argentina, Colombia, Paraguai, Chile etc. technically could have made part of the same country, but the divisions made by Spain were enough to difficult their integration
"Hey we found a meteorite in District 8 with a bunch of precious metals with a net worth of over $8 trillion" "Sorry you live in the T-shirt district no can do, better toss it into a volcano"
@@renard6012 na ,the Imperium would just take the Meteorite, and if there are local resistance they would just send some Bois to 'Rough' them up a bit, or destroy the planet at worst case scenario.
A section in Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need quips, “Europe is made up of multiple countries that have learned, over the years, to hate each other.” I’ve thought that joke also applies to places like Asia and the Middle East.
"What exactly destroyed the world?" "Why did some people survive. But not everyone?" "How did the survivor's react to the apocalypse?" "What kind of society emerged in the wake of the apocalypse?" "Why did such a society emerge?" Also, apocalypses and Dystopias are not mutually exclusive. 1984 and Brave New World both take place after world-destroying wars.
@@thesunwillneverset In the novel aren't the English still acts like East India Company? No wonder they are hated. But if you mean in real life I don't think anyone actually hating Britain aside from Irish?
@@asianjackass237 I haven't read any of the mentioned YA dystopia books other than Hunger Games, so I can't speak for the book, but IRL while it's not a vehement hatred most of the time, a lot of countries and peoples (understandably) at least harbor a grudge towards the English for what we did.
it could be argued that One Piece has some of the most interesting dystopian world building I've read, mainly because it takes you over 400 chapters for you to realize that the setting is actually a dystopia.
Something I always find kind of funny in bad dystopias is when the series acknowledges nothing in the world outside of America. Like, look at that Hunger Games map. America has devolved into this crazy district system and then Mexico is literally just there
@@markrobbins7529 Sure, but you could be a lot more creative considering how diverse cultures and ideologies are around the world and how a dystopian setting could be different in those
Dystopian fiction really only works if it's written by people with strong political views. Orwell was an ardent anti-stalinist, the Strugatsky brothers lived under the later era Soviet government. It's hard to make a dystopia work if you don't feel horribly strongly about anything.
Yeah i agree, he was very skeptical of authoritarianism like fascism stalinism and capitalism, only really showing support for Catalans anarchists and being a self described democratic socialist.
Owlblocks David capitalism can be -and often is- incredibly authoritarian. When your ability to obtain food, housing, medical care etc. is controlled entirely by one person/entity (i.e. your boss), you are not free.
@@owlblocksdavid4955 yes having all of the resources needed to live coming from an unelected group of capital shareholders and board of directors that profit from your labor is authoritarian, choosing your master doesnt make it less authoritarian. Read a book man its not that hard.
"New Asia is a dumb name that will never exist" lol so true It would be "Neo Japan", "Neo China", "Neo Vietnam " etc... and we all fight each other with giant robots
I would disagree that The Hunger Games is just a "look, that's bad" book. While it definitely didn't answer all the political questions (could it have, though, without too much exposition?) I think it had a pretty powerful message about how the media can twist horrific things and how people can grow desensitized if they don't watch for it. That said, it's easy to make a plain dystopia, and this was another great video! :)
I totally agree with your "too much exposition" point, and I think it's an important point a lot of people miss. To add to it: I've seen some comments on this video that complain about books not explaining what caused society to fall, or what led to the dystopia and their politics...Let's be honest, are we reading the book to learn every little thing about the author's world? Or are we trying to read about great characters in a great story?
@@plemcam We don’t need to learn too much about that, what I don’t like is how the people could put up with a government that constantly takes children every year to kill each other. If anything, I think it would last for about 15 years at most, not 75 years. This is mainly because they attempted to rebel earlier.
@@captainmarvelwilson508 I'll preface my response by saying I know the Hunger Games is flawed, but I think this part is where it did really well. It's a lot easier to control people than one might think. Even basic business marketing is a method of controlling, but more importantly manipulating, people. Let's look at oppressive regimes all throughout history. What did they use to maintain control? Violence, yes. But, more importantly, the threat of violence (as well as making it seem like a better deal to stay IN the nation than to leave it, etc.). Propaganda is a powerful tool that totalitarians wield, that's why I think the scene of the bombed-out District 13 is a really important one to include in the story. Another powerful tool is pitting the people against each other. If they hate each other, they'll direct that hate toward each other moreso than at the government. It's a lot easier to hate the winner of the Hunger Games that killed your kid, than it is to direct it at the government. It doesn't take long for people to forget who is actually working the strings, maybe one generation, two max. A great example of this concept in action is the Red Rising series, I highly recommend it.
@@plemcam I get what you mean. I can see how propaganda can manipulate people, as that has been done in history and is still something poisoning people's minds nowadays. I just don't know how a control like that could just last for 75 years, because eventually, it would be very abundantly clear who is pulling the strings. The Red Rising series though sound pretty interesting, I would like to check it out at some point. Just hope that if they make an adaptation, that they don't screw it up.
I disagree that in Panem everyone was equally opressed, the books always pointed out that some districts were richer than others/Capital's favorites. Also there's an underlying race theme that got lost in by the movie casting, Peeta is a white boy with better conditions than other people is district 12 while katniss and gale are both described as having "olive skin" and have to work harder to survive, the producers of the movie just decided hmmm let's tan jennifer lawrence and thor's brother. Also there are districts that are clearly predominantly black.
Some districts were willingly sending their childs for hunger games (i guess military one). So yeah. And I think in book was metioned that military district and technology one were treated better, so Capital HAD technology and military. And I guess they maked some adjutmens after DESTROYING ONE WHOLE DISTRICT FOR REBELION
jeonghan supremacist idk about that fully. I definitely remember the district about food production had a lot of black people, but I don’t remember the capital having a specific ethnicity. I think the demographies largely didn’t interact between districts due to the serf like system. So there were traits shared largely within districts. Although there probably was a race analogy there somewhere. It’s been a while since I got into it.
the selection was insane. the government banned premarital sex and beat starving children for stealing food and instead of like overthrowing it or changing anything, the author just like... decided that was all okay???
moreover, all she did was give maxon a 35-girl harem in which, inevitably, the oh-so-pretty america cringer would win his love (but throw in a love triangle to further the plot). ??? how do the _real_ problems actually end up resolved? please.
That actually isn't that egregious the simple fact is the imagery of the downtrodden masses overthrowing the dictatorship and winning their freedom isn't real because starving peasants aren't organized or strong enough to do anything if a dictatorship starts losing power it means the dictator has lost control of enough of his oligarchy for them to decide to replace him which is why the revolutionary is often times worse then the original dictator
There was one monarchy that used a beauty contest ( called a Bride-Show) to pick the monarch a wife, the Byzantine Empire. The last time they did that a woman named Irene of Athens won. She later got rid of her husband, and still later she blinded and/or killed all the heirs including her own sons. Then she did something unforgivable, Irene wanted to marry a super rich handsome foreigner to fill up the empire's coffers, and incidentally her bed. The guy ( Charlemagne) was a tall muscular athletic type and a blue eyed blonde, he was also gifted in music and keenly interested in literature, and did I mention crazy rich. This so appalled the Byzantines, that their empress would marry a barbarian, and incidentally refill the imperial treasury, they kicked her off the throne. They also never used beauty contests to choose a bride for the emperor again.
What’s much more frightening than a story starting out in a dystopia is showing a society *sliding into* a dystopia from a world that doesn’t look too different from our own.
Yeah, imagine a book about your average joe who is completely disillusioned with society. He continues to grow more and more resentful and less hopeful. That is, until, he encounters a political rally. They preach to the common man about how unfair it is that they have to work long hours all just so they can barely scrape by- or are unable to get a job at all. But instead of blaming those in power, and proposing reforms, they blame the immigrants for taking jobs, the disabled for leeching off of society, they blame literally everyone they hate for all the real problems in society. He eats it all up enthusiastically, and introduces his friends, family and coworkers to it, some are hesitant, but others fall into it just as easily as he did. More and more people are radicalised, and the party rises to power. Instead of helping the people who helped them get there, they turn their backs on them, and focus on consolidating their own power. It becomes increasingly obvious that the party doesn't care about the people, but their supporters remain blind to the truth. No matter how bad things become, their supporters follow them unquestioningly, completely wrapped up in all the propaganda they've been fed.
@@haydenlee8332 Star Wars is heroic, not frightening. It’s the kind of battle we would like to fight, with clear good and evil sides. By “frightening dystopias“, we mean 1984 & Co. I didn’t talk about what’s exciting or entertaining 😉.
That's fair, but consider the dark horse that is Canada: we got fascists creeping around along the margins, the government instituted a colonial tool of control in the form of a committee that tells it that Aboriginal people approve of whatever it wanted to do anyway and it's now surprised that real natives don't want their sacred lands to have oil pipelines rammed through them, the guy who was Prime Minister most of my life was so obnoxious that the new guy has a history of wearing blackface _and is still more respectable,_ and whenever we think of improving we just look south instead and then pat ourselves on the back for not being Americans.
@@blarg2429 Literally. 'At least we're not as bad as America.' We are just as much as a semi-dictatorship as they are. The majority said 'we don't want the pipeline,' so they asked the Indigenous folks, who also said they didn't want it, so they did it anyway. Democracy, who?
Dystopia as a whole has a lot of potential, arguably more than most genres, but it's held back by refusing to experiment. The genre tends to work better when it's aimed at adults instead of teenagers
@@evilnet1 It can even appear utopic on the surface with distopic undertones. In this case, it is genuinely a very high standard of living even for the lower class, but with a sacrifice to privacy and freedom. Heck, right now I can just ask for my lights to turn on and they do, but it's accomplished by having a microphone connected directly to Google. Is this in the direction of utopia because of the lack of effort to accomplish tasks, or towards a distopia because Big Brother is always listening?
It has suffered from commercial genre stagnation, much like cyberpunk... Plus, it's a much more difficult genre to work with, because, just like cyberpunk (which more often than not also tends to be dystopian), it requires some level of specialized knowledge to make it believable... Knowledge that requires research... And research that requires time you better spend writing! But there are many ways to make it work, and I don't get why authors are so damn lazy to do any of that, if it makes it easier and helps explore the genre much further: - If they can't be arsed to learn about real world geopolitics, they can invent their own: You can make your dystopian fiction take place in a completely made-up planet with completely made-up nations: Did you know the Principality of Belka invaded the Republic of Ustio after the Federal Law review of 1988? - They should focus more on setting and less on character. Make it an anthology of short stories set in your dystopia instead of the generic "epic" tale. That way we can explore more themes and points of view! This is the life of a rich corrupt politician here, and the life of a resistance member there, and the life of a poor starving kid over there... Or just make a chronicle about the rise and fall of this dystopian setting... - They should focus only on ONE or two aspects of the dystopia, and try to deconstruct them as much as they can to make it as realistic as possible. Explore all the implications of an aspect before leaping to the next one... A horrible war happened in the past? Cool! Your dystopia is all about people's efforts to survive in a ravaged post-war world! Corporations have taken over the government? Cool! Your dystopia is all about brutal violence in the name of profit, and the lives of the people stuck in the middle of the war between corporations! The same for, IDK, deadly viruses, police states, crime, technology, a corrupt society... You don't have to do ALL that at the same time! - They should make it more morally ambiguous: Maybe following the life of an average worker who gets involved with the resistance, and has to choose whether to help the evil tyrannical system and keep his family safe or help the resistance (even just by hiding one of their members in his house) to help change things... Not all protagonists have to default to fight to overthrow the evil government... Hell, I don't remember seeing a sympathetic protagonist who is defending the dystopia and the status quo. - I don't know... They should invent some wacky political system and go along with all its flaws, not with the intent to "fix" them, but for seeing how a crazy government system would make people miscerable in the real world... - Just make a parody: "This world is truly MISCERABLE. The government gets people killed and maimed because it's just tradition at this point and would be awkward not to do it! The alternative is going to the neighboring nation, currently enslaved by extradimensional eldritch gods! But at least using a toilet there is not punished as high treason against the country!" I don't know... The genre is full of potential, but it's sometimes wasted to make room for those juicy Hollywood contracts and royalties, so they gotta keep it dumbed down...
A common argument is that these books are directed towards kids/teens. Are people saying we shouldn't take kids seriously and give them quality reading material? This is one reason why Rick Riordan is so beloved. While there are multiple issues across his universe (mostly because of the complicated world he built), he still manages to make characters who do things that make sense and his plots are logical. It's not perfect, but it doesn't treat kids like idiots.
In Canada, we have our own dystopian YA book called "The Marrow Hunters," that is meant to explore the exploitation of Indigenous Canadians in contemporary Dystopian fashion. I appreciate there being a dystopian book from my home country, as well as it trying to explore the themes of Indigenous exploitation for a younger generation. That being said, the world building is a mess. It supposedly takes place 40 years in the future, in a world that is basically the Children of Men, except that instead of global sterility, everyone cannot dream. Lack of dreams eventually makes you insane, which is a real phenomenon. However, to cure the lack of dreams, the government has to hunt Indigenous people (who can still dream), to extract their bone marrow, which is "where the dreams are." Every time you think they'll explain this, it just becomes weirder and more unrealistic. There are so many questions that come from this like: - "Why does the Canadian government feel the need to hunt the Indigenous like animals when they could just build Nazi concentration camp or some other shit?" - "Why doesn't the government try to work with the Indigenous to synthesize the marrow juice, instead of going through the pain of manually hunting and extracting Indigenous? You know there will be no more Indigenous soon, right?" - "How does the government expect to keep the world running once they killed every last Indigenous?" - "What happened to countries that don't have native populations? Did they just died?" - "What do the Indigenous expect to do once the Canadians are gone? There's like 100 of them left." - "How did everyone lose the ability to dream (I'm willing to excuse this one because Children of Men did the same thing) - "Why are Indigenous the only ones to have Dream Marrow Juice?" That's not even going into the bad characters, the plot that tries painfully hard to be topical, the Gainax ending, or the fact that the book does not give us a single glance at the life of allogenous Canadians to give us a motive as to why they would do this. Despite this, the book was praised to high heavens because of the whole Indigenous stuff. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this executed correctly, and see more contemporary Indigenous writing, but this was just too bad to be worth praise.
I hold the belief that some writers do not really want to tell a story. They want to preach to the people under the gimmick of "writing fiction". They should drop the gimmick and write their political rants in a straightforward manner, because they're not making their message any better, they're making the practice of storytelling WORSE. The worst part is that blatantly political (or religious or whatever) stories can work, but they need to be _a good story first_ before slapping a message on them. The book you mention sounds like a setting with great potential, but the many plot holes not only can undermine the story, they can undermine the (very transparent) message it contains, which is a shame.
@@DonVigaDeFierro That's exactly what that stupid book is. It's a weird masochistic fetish story meant to vilify a group of people (presumably white Canadians). Handmaid's Tale is another crappy story like this.
*making a pitch in a publishing office* author: ok, i’ve got the most unique idea for a story! publisher: okay...what’s the setting? author: oh, you’ll never guess! it’s set it in a post-apocalyptic america! publisher: .... author: guess what the conflict is! publisher: .... author: come on, guess! publisher: an authoritarian government forces its citizens into arbitrary categories based on a singular characteristic? author: wrong! an authoritarian government forces its citizens into arbitrary categories based on a singular characteristic! publisher: ...what about the protagonist? author: oh, this is the most forward-thinking idea yet! i bet you’ve never heard anything like it! publisher: .... author: she’s a thin, well-built, heterosexual white female in her late teens! publisher: what about her personality? author: .... publisher: well? author: .... publisher: i think i’ve heard enough. author: so? publisher: ma’am, i’m afraid all we can offer you is... A SEVEN-FIGURE BOOK DEAL!!! author: :D
This is funny, but more often than not it's the publishers pressuring the authors into making changes that fit into trends. And then you have Divergent, in which the author just wrote a Hunger Games rip off in a month lol.
@@lennysmileyface Oh that's interesting...Adding an entirely new country into your world and mixing it with real countries sounds very unique ! (Bc as we all know, Australia doesn't exist)
@@lennysmileyface Mine is set in northern Japan with a Russian protagonist. It's not necessarily post-apocalypse nor a dystopia, just your typical war and exploration story
My biggest problem with the dystopian genre is that nine times out of ten the entire thesis statement is essentially "Wouldn't it suck if the government was actively malicious?"
I love the maze runner series for its characters and storytelling, but your take on the world building are 100% accurate lol. Always bugged me how a damn maze is supposed to find a cure to a virus
I think they explained it in the stories as the virus taking place in the brain so if they figure out how the kids brains are different than they can stop the virus from being able to take over the brain Still murder maze is an overreaction
For the first book or so I thought the twist was going to be that the maze was supposed to protect them, something went wrong, and now they're stuck there alone with this automated system and monsters that in some twisted way is trying to protect them from the outside
@@Emma.Lou1 it was ok but the worldbuilding wasn’t great(there wasn’t really much in the first book but in the second and third it made no sense as he explained) the 2,3,4 books are pretty horrible worldbuilding but plot is eh
The best explanation for the economic system in Panem is that it makes all the districts dependent on each other. That way, if any district tries to secede or rebel, they’ll be cut off from access to important resources and can’t be self sufficient. Wether this was intentional, I’m not sure, but it provides a decent explanation.
This is how the British empire worked in real life. And why its colony Ireland was forced to grow only potatoes. When a disease caused all the potatoes to fail, Ireland starved while Britain had food from its other colonies. This system was called Mercantilism, and it's weird when Econ bros act like it's 'economically impossible' when it was dominant across humanity for centuries.
@LowestofheDead that's not what caused the famine at all. Most of the best land was owned by rich land-owners, who had people grow food to export for a profit. Poor people were left with small patches of poor quality land to grow food for themselves, and mostly grew potatoes because that's all that would grow there in sufficient quantities. When the disease killed the potatoes, the poor starved, while the rich continued to grow and export food.
@@All-ze9cl I haven't read these books since middle school, so correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't district 5 one of the very loyal districts? Although I agree that energy production is probably the worst one to outsource.
To be fair, I remember reading a pretty good thesis on these mass-produced novels being popular *because* they don't say much. It was literally titled "Dystopian Fiction For Young Adults" and I can't remember the author so good luck finding it. Basically, the thesis claimed that these were popular because they presented an oppressive world in a way that the target audience could understand. They present a world where issues like the environment, corporations replacing governments, and uncontrolled/unethical science are evident, and a teenager much like the target audience can be part of the process of fixing them. I thought a lot of it was hot air but I honestly can't disagree with the core tenants. I think where most of these books fail isn't the worldbuilding if that thesis is true, since the simplistic worldbuilding would be a key part of the genre. They'd be bad because they don't present an actual solution to the problems beyond "So the protagonist and their friends destroy the bad guys, proving that righteous violence really does solve everything". Then the people who just write this stuff to make money make this whole thing irrelevant.
This is true, items should be judged (criticized) for what they’re trying to accomplish. If reaching their target audience with a story that can easily identify with was the true goal and not necessarily introducing an entirely original story, than it did a good job.
I think the point of this video is that these are examples of bad worldbuilding because the systems are not sustainable, not because they are simplistic. But thesis still sounds interesting
The real problem is you can't give real solutions to teenagers. Teenagers wouldn't recognize real solutions if they kicked them in the face. These dystopias are popular with young adults because 1) the world sucks when you're a young adult and all these older adults have so much power over you, and 2) young adults haven't lived long enough to actually know how the world works. So throw together a sucky world with people who have too much power over you, a nonsensical gimmick, and rebellious teenagers, and bam! You have instant relatability.
I think the later YA dystopias fell into this more than the Hunger Games did too. The Hunger Games was pretty much the trendsetter and was thus allowed to explore its ideas and themes more freely, but the other Hunger Games rip offs weren’t as interested in themes or ideas and instead were more focused on capturing that lightning in a bottle.
About that The Selection book: I haven’t read it, but as you started to talk about how in monarchies the marriage serves to make alliances and peace, I thought that finding a princess (possibly prince, in a parellel universe, ofc) from the commoners is a way of making an alliance with the subjects, especially looking at it from the perspective of the distorted, reality-shows-obsessed society we live in 😅
This motive does make sense, but in real life, there would be more to it. They would probably pick only one girl and give her a very thorough background check. She would have the appearance of being a commoner, but in reality, she's nowhere near common. She's gorgeous, accomplished, volunteers heavily in her community, and maybe comes from a (slightly) rich family with a successful business that the government wants to invest in (so it's a financial move as well as a public relations move) They would then show the prince photos and video footage of her so he can decide if she's pretty enough to date. If he gives the okay, then they would bring the girl in and stage a meeting between the girl and the prince. Their courtship would be advertised with more fervor than the superbowl. Then, the royal wedding that has the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster would temporarily give the economy a huge boost. I know that the whole point of The Selection is Keeping Up With The Kardashians + Princess And the Pea, or whatever, but that method is needlessly complicated. The only reason that this needless complication would make sense is if it is a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years, a tradition whose purpose has long since faded and it exists only for itself. (For example: Thailand used to have a set of strict laws that dictated how commoners were supposed to interact with royals. One of these laws said that if a royal is drowning and a commoner tries to save their life but fails, then the commoner is to be executed. These laws were done away with after a Thai princess drowned in full view of her entourage. No one wanted to risk death by trying to save her.)
Can I just have one dystopia story where instead of a teenage girl uprooting an empire, it's a harden war veteran? Or someone like Napoleon? Seriously napoleonic wars are so much cooler than anything I think a YA dystopia could come up with
*In a deep announcer voice * Introducing: Badass Grandma! She has decades of experience tending a family, house, and farm, knows what the Old World was like, and can blow a man's head off with a shotgun. She likes to knit sweaters for her extended family, but all her life trained in killing pests and predators that would invade her farm or chase off thieves. After the government took her weapons, she learned how well knitting needles can double as daggers! She and her trusty side-kick, an old mule she'd helped bring into the world, are forced to leave their home. To protect her flock, she must join the rebellion and put those government wolves down. How about that?
Then don't read YA. Because you're never gonna get anything but a YA protagonist in.... YA fiction. That is literally what makes it YA. It's not YA anymore if it doesn't have a YA protag. Don't read a genre, then complain that it conforms to the necessary elements of that genre. That's like complaining that horror has monsters in it.
@LordofFullmetal Ironically, more publishers are pushing toward YA because it's popular. Adult has the stigma about being full of sex, while YA doesn't. So it's either a.) A stupid teen MC, or b.) 30 pages of sex. Of course, not all adult genre books have gratuitous amounts of pork, but enough do that it's a bit boffins a turn off from that category. I'm saying this as someone who writes in the adult category (one MC being 18, in another book one being in his late 30s, and in another a kid being 12) without having ever written sex. I have not gotten published yet, but most of my stories not even having a romantic subplot might not help in my publishing attempts.
closest to that imo is metal gear series especially mgs2 (except if you consider raiden as YA) and mgs4. a good game series tho. but this video talk about books tho. not sure if this is something you want
@@sundancetitan5675 Kinda, canada wasn't a thing back then, it was a network of British colonies which we wanted to incorporate into the USA, but the attack went miserably and almost led to the British reconquring the US.
Too many readers don't realize that the character's actions and the author's message can be two separate things, so I'm not sure if a book like that would do well
By definition, that book can't exist. A dystopia is a place of chaos and suffering. Unless the protagonist is a villain you root for to fail, I don't think that can happen.
9:58: “there’s no situation in which a sovereign nation is a colony” I mean, it wasn’t exactly that, but the lines got really blurred when the Portuguese Royal family fled to Brazil in the 1800s.
I'm Brazilian and I'll tell you what happened, in 1810 still prince regent João elevated Brazil to a kingdom but united with Portugal (like the UK and Austria-Hungary) with him and his mother being the only kings/queens of Brazil until Prince Pedro elevated Brazil to an sovereign empire.
To be fair, The Hunger Games is at least decently built, written, and themed. Suzanne Collins may have codified the “YA Heroine breaks free of a dystopia” thing but I feel it’s a mistake to lump her in with the mountain of imitators trying to capitalize on her success by doing what she did. Collins’ world is well constructed if one knows where to look (for example, the division of districts according to what resource they afford the capital is actually quite an effective way of curtailing any potential secessions, as none has the infrastructure to produce for themselves the resources any of the others do), and the focus in the book about how the media tries to play up Katniss and Peeta’s romance in the middle of the Death Game Where Children Die is, shall we say, relevant (especially since the movie adaptation did exactly that). I’d also point to the allusion made by the nation’s name - Panem is latin, taken from the phrase “Panem et circenses,” or “Bread and circuses,” famous words of the poet Juvenal meant to represent the core of how citizens are best controlled. It’s stated pretty firmly in the book that the lower-numbered districts - 1, 2, and 4 especially if memory serves, are treated much better than many of the others, presumably due to joining the empire sooner and/or more amicably. Likely the reason district 2 never staged a coup is that they’re treated relatively well, and don’t want to take the risk of falling out of favor with the capitol should such an effort fail. The book never makes mention of any elections, so presumably the capitol are the sole voting population or the “President” is more akin to a king and the capitol citizens their landed aristocracy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it wouldn’t seem like the capitol would be all that keen on letting any of the districts have its own diverse economy since that keeps the, dependent on each other’s resources - and thus, the capitol, who collects and distributes them - to subsist. Besides, it’s pretty clear that the dystopian empire isn’t really meant to be set up all that well since, surprise surprise, it collapses really quickly. I didn’t really... enjoy... the hunger games that much, the books are surprisingly heavy stuff when you pay attention to subtext, but I’d balk at the idea of them being called poorly written
The series as a whole is decent and serves it's purpose but it's apparent things are being simplified for a younger audience, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That said the pacing of it is weird in my opinion and changes in tone and theme quite drastically. It still keeps it's core principles which is what makes it a decent series but the sudden shift makes the latter half of the series a bit dense and seems to lose what made it decent in the first place. I honestly was bored with Mockingjay because it focused do heavily on the political commentary, which isn't necessarily bad, I just think it could have been handled better.
Katniss is an awful, unlikeable character, and the love triangle is beyond tedious and contrived. The author never spends more than 2 seconds on Gale's characterization but milks that hottie revolutionary for all the drama he's worth. And I'll never forgive Collins for blatantly killing off Katniss' sister in order to force her to make a decision on which man to bone. YECH.
"In a monarchy marriages are arranged for political purposes, they form alliances between dynasties" That's not always the case, especially if the kingdom or empire is so large and hegemonic that marrying into noble families may actually do more harm to the ruling dynasty than good. For instance the Ottoman Sultans mostly had slave girls as concubines in their harems, late Han dynasty China emperors would marry women of common birth over aristocrats because having no ties to established noble clans means they are less likely to create networks of power for themselves to essentially become more powerful than the emperor himself (which happened quite a few times in Han China). In fact the second last emperor of the Han dynasty made the daughter of a butcher his empress.
And even then, it’s still the uncommon case in history that monarchic marriages can be made from ‘love’. Like the recent Edward, who abdicated to marry his wife.
He Jin wasn't actually a butcher any more than the owner of a McDonalds is. Him and his sister were both from a wealthy land-owning family that just so happened to make a lot of money rearing animals and selling their meat on that land. 'Butcher' is a title a lot of people who didn't like him used because it made him sound more like a peasant.
Is anyone going to talk about how Ender’s Game is actually really well written? The story might be a little hard to understand, but the message is really powerful if you understand it well
@@heathen616i mean i havent read them all but he didnt say they were bad books, he said they were bad dystopias. Like most people would agree the hunger games is not a bad book
@@alpha_9997yea this, he’s specifically talking about the world building. he even acknowledges that hunger games is good, but just because something is good doesn’t mean it cant fail or be underwhelming in other regards. it just all depends on what the author focuses on, world building obviously isnt a strong thing these authors build on. it’s something to help move the plot along
One thing I don't like about dystopias is how they pick a setting, typically a pretty seemingly small one based off the number of people they describe living in utopia, and then act like no other place on Earth exists. People in North Korea know that there is a rest of the world and they might think about it from time to time
Are there any post-dystopian settings? A society that recovers from a dystopian regime etc. It would be very interesting to see a post-1984 world of sorts, since the society of 1984 changed so much in regards to culture and language.
I guess technically the epilogue to the handmaids tail is that? Also Aldous Huxley’s Island COULD be seen as that since it’s his utopian answer to the dystopia he created in Brave New World
First story that comes to mind for me would be the game Fallout: New Vegas, set 200 years after a nuclear war between America and China where people have recovered from the war and new powers are nation building in the west coast with two factions; the New Republic of California, a democratic republic fashioning itself off the old world democracies with all the faults and corruption with it and Cesar's Legion, a gang of slavers from Arizona who model themselves after the Roman Empire. Both factions are fighting over the Hover Dam as a strategic location amidst various tribes and factions of Las Vegas who want to remain independent of both powers
1984 doesn't even have that much world-building, if you think about it. You know what life is like for one guy right at that moment, the history leading up to that point is basically just "there was a war, then Big Brother". Even what Winston reads about the other three countries could be party propaganda, for all he knows. Maybe "less is more" when it comes to things like this. The more the author explains about the world, the more holes can be poked in it, unless they have PHD's, or very good advice in, sociology, politics and economics.
@@michaelmartin9022 adding to that, the reason there isn't that much world building is that even *Winston* doesn't know the history, and he lived through it. There are no records, no history books except that which Big Brother allows.
Moral of the story: YA authors seriously need to retake(or just take at all) an economics course. A basic grasp of economics would tell you most of these worlds would not be able to sustain themselves
As sarah Z described matched “What if the government told you who to love, but not in a gay way in the way that your parents wont let you date thomas even though he’s emotional and writes poetry”
My biggest problem with Dystopias in fiction is that they very rarely talk about the politics of the authoritarian nation, all they ever do is talk about how the people above are mean and let’s unite people, and all is happy go lucky in the end They barely show the moral disgusts of the nation, and the factions inside the ruling class, they don’t ever show how when the ruling are deposed how those remaining will become warlords and the violence that’s insues Edit: Another thing I hate is the “unspecified thing happend now all is shit”, aswell as America being the only topic in these books with the rest of the world being irrelevant to these authors Edit 2: I guess this is why Orwell’s 1984 was so good, he had the experience from fighting in the Spanish Civil War, he knows from experience what a rebellion is, and witnessed fascists in person and lived through WW2 to understand how this stuff works
1984 is more of a critique on authoritarian socialism rather than fascism. Orwell himself was very much a libertarian socialist and feared what an overbearing government could do to a revolution. That, and the terminology used by "The Party" is very leftist in nature, you don't see fascists call each other "comrade" very often, nor do they use terms such as "proletariat" very often (proles). When they do use such terms, it's more or less to create a feeling of unity, not to incite any other emotion. That, and I can't imagine any fascist nation *not* wanting their party members to breed or experience intimacy, unlike The Party.
And they always assume Dystopian world could end by spontaneously “uniting the people”. A true Dystopian world is meant to deliver a sense of desperation and dread to the readers. It’s a world where the majority of the population is institutionalized by the regime. The Brave New World and 1984 grasped this. Most people would be too coward to fight, or too brainwashed to revolt. In 1984 people support the party despite being constantly monitored and oppressed. The control of the party is so rooted that there’s no moral obligation to fight against the system, since doing so would drag millions of people into chaos and would bring more suffering to the world. The concept of democracy or freedom is completely meaningless in such worlds. More people will live in peace ignorantly and would be happier if there’s no revolution. To fight against a Dystopian regime would mean to fight the majority of the population. It would requires more brutal killings of the innocent and acts of terrorism. If there are rebels popping up everywhere supporting the protagonists and every common folks just straight up hate their government, then it’s not dystopian, it’s just a shitty dictatorship that can be easily overthrown.
I really like the unwind series for that reason, it actually explains how the world came to be the way that it is. It’s also not totally unrealistic; the government isn’t obviously controlling everything anyone does at anytime, most people live normal lives and instead everyone being completely polarized on the issue, most regular citizens are moderate and are swayed by government propaganda (not exactly subtle but unlike some other novels where the government says “do what we tell you or else” the government instead makes excuses about the economy and good of the people and plays moral high ground.
The handmade tale does that. We see that there are other groups, what exactly the government believes in and even how the rest of the world reacts -both during and after.
“New Asia”? The author knows Asia is made up of multiple vastly different cultures and politics, so which Asian culture forms New Asia? North Korea? South Korea? China? Maybe East Asian (like India)?
Looked at the author for that story. Middle-aged white Karen, so I'm not shocked that she thinks that you can just lump all the Asian countries together and not have the most disjointed thing ever seen
Every publish company after The Hunger Games: Writer: Hi, I have a book for you, it’s a long, heart-warming piece about soldiers on the Western Front of the First World War. Publisher: Okay, so is this going to be about teenagers in the midst of the war in some kind of love triangle? Writer: No it’s just about soldiers. Publisher: So is this going to be a WW1 allegory in a dystopian America? Writer: No... It’s just a story about people in the First World War. Publisher: I don’t what you’re talking about, get outta here. Credit to Ryan George’s video on ‘every movie studio today’
The hunger games doesn't really fit within the description you listed at the start of the video, because in the hunger games being dystopian has thematic purpose, and the series has a message that is both relevant and well developed. The hunger games explores, more than authoritarianism, revolution. And throughout the series it serves as both a call to action, as well as a cautionary tale. The theme is developed and expanded on in each book, with each book focusing on a different aspect of revolution.
Also the districts aren't equally oppressed. 1 and 2 are their sweethearts and treated like it - because 1 provides the luxury items and 2 provides the military power
@@violetlavi2207 bruh if you have a quarter of the country juiced to the gills on military might all it takes is one dickhead from that region to look at the capital and go "dude we can take over these cyberpunk les miserables looking nancies in a single night" and boom they're gone without much of a second thought. The whole "well they're the capital's spoiled children" makes even less sense because anybody with half a mind about human behavior would tell you anybody who's spoiled is never satisfied, they will always want more and will take more if given the opportunity. Look at Napoleon, the Japanese shogunate, and the age of warlords in China for examples of this You don't have to be a coal miner sucking shit to want to overthrow a government, more times than not it's just some ass with a vision and district 1 and 2 couldn't be more primed for that
“Everyone is equally oppressed except the ruling class” except in Hunger Games, they’re actually not? First of all, the twelve districts have varying levels of government oppression and poverty, with 12 being the poorest but also the least regulated. Second, even within the districts there’s a distinct hierarchy, though we only really get the details in district Twelve. In Twelve, most residents come from the Seam, where all the coal miners come from. Katniss’s dad is from the Seam, and she inherits his olive skin and dark hair, which are traits more common in the mining class. There’s also an “upper class”, which is marginally better off than the miners, and work trade jobs like running the bakery or apothecary. Katniss’s mom is from there, as well as Peeta and his family, and they all have fair hair and skin. Katniss is very aware of these class divides and her distrust plays a big role in the story.
I mean, ya there is a class system within the districts, but weather you are a merchant from district one, or a miner from district 12, the capitol is still gonna murder you equally as violently if you say something against them
@@coltonmason4623 that goes for citizens of the capitol as well, doesn't mean they don't benefit from the system by being born in the capital as they would by being from the first few districts as well.
@@nickelakon5369 The citizens of the capital grow up exempt from the Hunger Games though (which is this story's ULTIMATE form of oppression). They are allowed lives of luxury where they essentially never grow up having to want or work for anything because all their wants and needs are handled by each of the 12 Districts. The citizens of the Capital are the ruling class, and while they do indeed suffer their own form of oppression, they aren't *EQUALLY* oppressed (as is the point of the comment taken from this video). Not even the first few districts are exempt from the Hunger Games. And, as proven by Katniss and Haymitch before her, the first few districts aren't guaranteed victories either despite being better off than the other districts. In the general sense, each district equally suffers the oppression of the Hunger Games. In a subgeneral sense, each district suffers the oppression of being equally responsible for supplying the Capital with vital resources (District 12 coal, District 11 crops, District 10 meats, etc). Whether a district benefits from what they supply has nothing to do with the oppression being objectively equal, but how they react to supplying it and the nature of their resource's importance can affect to what extent the oppression occurs.
Also the rich districts are the low-numbered ones that produce all the military equipment and soldiers, and in-universe the people from those districts usually win the Hunger Games because they literally get trained from birth
I have to say -- The Hunger Games Trilogy had some good stuff! The shit was good! I enjoyed myself a lot. I liked the detail where Katniss sells contraband to guards in District 12 because it's so bad there that even the people enforcing the rules aren't getting enough to get by. One thing people don't seem to see is that the Capitol doesn't treat all the Districts the same? 1 and 2 are their sweethearts, they LOVE 1 and 2. They give them plenty of food and supplies, that's why all the Careers come from there, and that's why 2 is the final District standing that's still loyal to the Capitol, because the Capitol wasn't fucking stupid and they didn't starve their primary source for military power. People in 2 don't know that things are really bad in 12, nor would they care if they found out. They're loyal to the regime. Also the Districts are split by race, I think? I'm pretty sure District 11 is the District with the most POC. But that's all I have to say. The other books are fucking awful, especially Divergent. Divergent makes me angry. It gave Hunger Games a bad name.
I agree, I think that was neat worldbuilding detail Also I don't think they were explicitly racially segregated but they were closer to homogenous for each district
To be fair a writer doesn't have to know everything to write their story. Even you don't understand a lot of their ideas. For example (as I saw in another comment) in The Hunger Games the Capitol is right to not let the regions have even the minimal independency.
5:00 "Since all the kids eat is meat, fish, and mushrooms, it make sense they'd be malnourished" Malnourished is one thing, but... wouldn't they all get scurvy? Although according to Google, you can apparently get vitamin C by eating beef spleen, so there's that I guess. But how would they get beef if they don't have any crops for livestock feed? Do they just catch wild animals, who can live on the surface without being attacked because...? I have so many questions.
Also growth issues. Not to bring anime into everything, but in Attack on Titan, there is a scenario like this were it's done properly because bone growth issues are rampant due to the lack vitamin D (no sunlight) to help the calcium they get merge into their bones. There's also a brief mention of failing eyesight due to the darkness, but yeah.
Many mushrooms have vitamin c and citric acid, so it's not impossible that they have a combination of mushrooms and meat that allows them to survive, depending on how many different species of mushrooms they produce.
Aaron Rotenberg pre agrarian humans ate meat and fish almost exclusively and they were in far better physical shape on average than humans at any other point in history including today
The dumbest apart Legend wasn't the fact that the oceans would flood that much or whatever. It's the fact that the author thinks Africa and the Middle East would just unite like that xD
With the power of PLOT TAPE, I united China and India/All of the American continent/All of the Middle East/All of Africa/All of Europe/All of Asia into A SINGLE STATE!!
this is bizarre to me. unification is incredibly, and I mean INCREDIBLY, popular in the Arab world and Africa. Practically every founding father and every post-colonial theorist all advocated it and made attempts to make it work. Every comment section on the latest western political fuckery around here is like, damn it we should've united decades ago. I'm Tunisian and working on unifying with the rest of North Africa is literally in our constitution, just as an example. Or take the seminal work of Kwame nkrumah literally named "Africa must unite", the work of Frantz Fanon, Samir Amin, the list is looong.
@@tesso.6193 But how would that work in the _real_ world? The middle east alone currently possesses greatly different cultures and political systems, is only barely united thanks to religion and some history, and even then, there is a HUGE religious divide between Shiites and Sunni, and I'm sure most regimes distrust their neighbors more than they distrust, say, the Western powers. And Africa is HUGE. It has an enormous number of regions, ethnicities, cultures, economies and interests, and many of those interests oppose others. I highly doubt any regional power is going to forfeit their sovereignty if it means handling over decisions to a federal government, especially when it also integrates a neighboring nation they do not trust, and given that only a few decades ago they gained their own sovereignty by fighting the colonial powers, I don't see any reason they could have to join a single state. I mean, the African union and the Arab league exist, but I don't find any desire on any member to become a single state, and I doubt any of us would see a united Africa or Arab world in our lifetimes, and it may not even be the best for its member states.
the funniest thing abt the denver wall idea is the fact that the there is a famous “brown cloud” above denver because the pollution is so bad and concentrated, so a retractable roof would make it living hell
I want a series about a publisher who's trying to restart literacy in a post apocalyptic America, and is flooded with unending novels of sassy and beautiful young women leading rebellions against various arbitrary and oppressive caste systems. The novels will all include love triangles with various bad boys, while the publisher tries to avoid quid pro quo "relationships" with all the authors.
I know this is a joke, but if you want a serious take on a story of someone trying to introduce literacy in a largely-illiterate society, watch "Ascendance of a Bookworm." It's a very cute anime about a girl who wants to read and write books in a world where books are expensive and only for nobility.
I felt attacked when he showed the Enders game cover lol. I never thought of it as a dystopia since I was more focused on the overall “xenophobia/genocide is bad” message, but after giving it a little thought yeah it totally makes sense.
The biggest thing I liked about the Hunger Games was how Katniss didn't single handly overthrow the Capital. Various other people and such did everything and she for the most part just sat there it felt like. Most stories about overthrowing a power make it seem like one person can do it all. Not here.
"What if the government was evil and also made you fight vampires with nunchucks, isn't all that intriguing" Excuse me, that would actually be pretty cool.
"Second, this painful commentary on American debt to foreign countries doesn't add up because at this point most of the creditors have made more money of the interest than they would of the principle."
Except there already was an uprising in the Hunger Games. There was like a world War and from the ashes grew Panem and their districts. The capital and the first couple districts are fairly well off and benefit from the system. Especially district 1 and 2. But there was an uprising from the other districts. In turn, the government along with the top districts blew up district 13. After that, they started the Hunger Games to keep people in the capital distracted and keep the other districts in line. District 1 and 2 enjoy the games and are trained for them. If you win the games, you get unlimited riches, and your district gets benefits as well. Alot of the brainwashed people in the capital and districts were convinced that it was a benefit, not realizing how poorly the higher numbered districts were living. A successful uprising would not have been possible without the outside help from what was leftover of district 13 and the few people in the capital. Also, even if someone other than Katniss (who had become so popular in the capital) in the districts had started to create an uprising, Snow would have immediately killed them and their whole family.
ding ding. also its meant to be flimsy. Its only been actually around for 2 or 3 generations. Only the memory of the horrible war is keeping them down.
Bruh if you have a quarter of the country juiced to the gills on military might all it takes is one dickhead from that region to look at the capital and go "dude we can take over these cyberpunk les miserables looking nancies in a single night" and boom they're gone without much of a second thought. The whole "well they're the capital's spoiled children" makes even less sense because anybody with half a mind about human behavior would tell you anybody who's spoiled is never satisfied, they will always want more and will take more if given the opportunity. You don't have to be a coal miner sucking shit to want to overthrow a government, more times than not it just some ass with a vision and district 1 and 2 couldn't be more primed for that. The fact that the capital was even able to maintain control for 2 generations makes so little sense it's mind-boggling to me
This makes me want to write a parody book where the main hero is a superpowered knight who is fighting against a completely and absolutely insane mustache twirling illuminati level regime that throws all sorts of impossible nonsense at ya like Kaijus, alien mind control slugs, The Terminator, and Evil Superman, but at the end it's revealed it was actually all in the character's head and he was delusional all along.
Some worldbuilding advice: -Take an old convention from one genre and put it in another (eg. Dragons in a post-apocalyptic teen dystopia) -Take a trope that hasn't been seen in decades and bring it back to the genre (eg. psychic Dragons that play mind games and can wipe peoples' memories, last seen in _The Silmarillion_ - Tolkien was a master of the genre, he did many things that imitators _never_ did). -Do your own spin on a trope (eg. have the young adult dystopia getting overthrown be the inciting incident of book one rather than the climax of book three, and at the hands... er, claws... of a Dragon attracted by all the shiny stuff). -BUT WHAT ABOUT DRAGONS?
Ok but I like the idea of the government being overthrown in book 1. Then the rest of the series is the main character leading an army to stop other countries from capitalising on the chaos.
@@user-rl4tg2mr9n bro just change it into an alt history book and we're golden. Imagine a scenario where some rebellion succeed, maybe something like the American civil war... Wait, they made that already.
I think the concept of a queen being picked through a game show could be really interesting, if done as a commentary on reality TV and the obsession with celebrity.
DapperCuttlefish in a certain sense i believe the books did that but because of the romance element it was overshadowed and made less important thematically. i think his critiques on this series in particular weren’t as on the nose because the whole marrying a commoner thing was not only the point of the book (it was supposed to be aspiration and a way to appease the masses- and a critique on exceptionalism and the way the american dream is false) it also has some historical context
not saying the book is unflawed and i admittedly have a soft spot for it given i read it when i was younger but that’s just how i interpreted his analysis
8:33 That's the dumbest thing ever lmao. Tibet is called the roof of the world for good reason and the writer thought Tibet drowned but not the rest of Asia? Bruh If Tibet drowned, it means most of the land mass is drowned. It take a min of 'research' to find that.
I really disagree about putting hunger games into the same category as its knock-offs. It's obvs not a perfect story, but it did a much better job then the stories that copied it and did have a message about people becoming so desensitised to violence, media manipulation, ect ect which extremely ironically got overlooked by the actual media when the movies came out in favour of love trios and all that junk.
Actually the Grand Dukes of Moscow and early Tsars of Russia would have glorified fashion shows to determine their wife, so the Selection sort of makes sense.
I remember I tried to read the selection in middle school, I had to stop after the mc described making out with her boyfriend for like, five paragraphs
i read this book and the mc writes fanfiction of her favourite character in a vampire franchise or something, 11 year old me had to read the steamy make out sessions she wrote while everyone was reading harry potter or wimpy kid 😀🔫 what a good first experience
I feel kind of embarrassed looking back now, because I loved the selection so much as a kid/preteen. I liked a lot of these YA dystopian novels because of the caste systems for some reason. I actually want to get back into reading, so I thought to look for books like the selection. But, I started watching these videos and they brought back the memories I had forgotten after years of not reading the book. What the hell was I thinking as a kid?!
I feel like a lot of the audience reading these books are somewhat aware of the mistakes in the world building but read them more for the plot than for the dystopian setting (like in legend or the selection, it doesn’t matter if the world building makes sense, it only matters that they are oppressed and want to oppose their totalitarian government)
True, but I wouldn't really call the selection a dystopia. Yeah, it details the fall of modern governments (which is SO stupid given how that's not usually how foreign policy works, but I digress) but the only "dystopia" thing it checks off is that there are somewhat cruel punishments and that there is a division of class. I think to me it's more of a weird monarchy situation than a total dystopian universe.
I think the “issues” mentioned with the Hinger Games were kinda nitpickey or not getting the point. District 2 has the most military power, but continues to support the Capitol and Panem because they’re still very well off in this system. The Capitol maintains power by pitting the districts against each other, more metaphorically with some districts being more well-off than others and resenting each other for it, and literally represented by the actual Hunger Games. And each district supplies something to the Capitol while the Capitol does nothing because it represents imperialism. The Capitol probably claims to give the districts protection or money/resources, but of course that’s incomparable to the resources given to the Capitol. However, if each district made all the resources, they wouldn’t depend on the Capitol to give them small amounts of resources from other districts. (If Distict 4 had grain, they wouldn’t need the Capitol to send it from District 11 for them.) Thus that’s another method of control.
if district 11 was fucked, all the food supply would be fucked, because the capitol wont make money off of letting everyone make food. just like our current system where we couldn't profit off of stockpiling medical supplies so now we are fucked
I also think Effie and the stylists also help create a theme that the violence and destruction isn’t caused out of malice by the citizens of the Capitol, but ignorance. Throughout the series, Effie and the stylists start off as a typical Capitol citizen, totally uncaring of the plight of the districts, but as they grow closer to Katniss and Peeta, they begin to understand the horrors. I think one of the clearest moments of this evolution is in the second book/movie where Effie tells Peeta and Katniss they deserved better, communicating she understands the horrors, but is powerless.
WerewolfofEpicness it’s shown in the second book that katniss’ stylists frequently complained about minor shortages of products which is how katniss keeps track on which districts are rioting. She also finds out that district 11 especially is VERY heavy on public executions because the capitol can’t afford to lose them. District 12 was previously a bit abandoned because they always made their coal quota and had a small population
They designed it so not one district could survive without the others. We see it with 13, they struggled to survive, even when we see them they have only just gotten on their feet. I'm still not sure though how the capitol became so powerful though in the first place
@@kartoonfanatic At this point I feel we're having generation where the fantasy world-building is seen as the core part rather than a good back drop that drives actual story ideas.
In the Maze Hunter franchise, the latter books really delve into how set back humanity is by all the calamities and whatnot, plus the climate is totally thrown up in the books, and food is still an issue, despite most of the population being melted by the sun. I think the Maze Runner series is one of the few dystopian book series that fleshed out it's world really well.
One of the only good dystopian scenarios I know of is The City from Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves dystopian cyberpunk settings.
i often think about how somewhere in another dimension someone is reading about the late stage capitalism in which we live and thinking how dumb and ridiculous it is, to the point where it breaks your suspension of disbelief with the fact that even being absurdly antifunctional and falling into crisis multiple times, it still stands. not as dumb as Selection though
and to think, it's so easy to just make a dictatorship that makes sense. "I mean, clearly President Liveton is popular, he's gotten 90% of the vote the last 20 elections, for doubting basic numbers, we'll have to send you to an education camp." Makes a hell of a lot more sense than.... "Emperor Evil lives in ultra luxury, flaunting it like there's no tomorrow, while you live in super-slums. Please don't rebel, thanks." But these books always seem to go for the second.
Showing the cover of UnWind by Neal Shusterman in the beginning really made me wonder about the criticisms there, because a lot of the common themes in the criticism towards the world building in those books just doesn’t apply to UnWind; but then then video ended without Unwind coming up again so there’s that
