At the recent Storymakers conference, I taught a class on Writing Dystopia. This week I’ll be turning that class into a series of blogs:

Monday: Defining Dystopia
Tuesday: History of Dystopia
Wednesday: Elements of Dystopia
Thursday: Elements of the Dystopian Hero
Friday: Social Commentary in Dystopian Fiction

In this final installment of the dystopian blog series, I want to talk about the social commentary that is inherent to dystopian fiction.

On Tuesday we talked about how dystopia is reactionary; it looks at a social problem and extrapolates that problem to its frightening extreme. When looking at the origins of almost any dystopia, the authors often frankly coming upon a troubling subject and then imagining how the world would be different if that subject became more and more prevalent:

From Ally Condie, about Matched:

“The real catalyst was a conversation I had with my husband about marriage in the fall of 2008. He posited the question: What if someone wrote the perfect algorithm for lining people up, and the government used it to decide who you married, when you married, etc.?”

Publishers Weekly wrote about Suzanne Collins inspiration for The Hunger Games:

Collins says the idea for the brutal nation of Panem came one evening when she was channel-surfing between a reality show competition and war coverage. “I was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way.” She also cites the Greek myth of Theseus, in which the city of Athens was forced to send 14 young men and women into the labyrinth in Crete to face the Minotaur. “Even as a kid, I could appreciate how ruthless this was,” Collins recalled. “Crete was sending a very clear message: ‘Mess with us and we’ll do something worse than kill you. We’ll kill your children.’ ”

Some authors take it a step further, where the social problem is not just the inspiration, but the author specifically wants to make a political/philosophical point:

Ray Bradbury wrote about Fahrenheit 451:

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist / Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist / Women’s Lib / Republican / Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.

The New York Times wrote about Ayn Rand’s inspiration for Atlas Shrugged:

Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”

Almost every dystopia fits this mold: taking a current problem and extrapolating upon it. Uglies addresses body image. Brave New World is about our disposable consumer culture and our obsession with hedonistic pleasure and entertainment. We talks about conformity and Communism.

Going all the way back to our Monday topic, I really think that this social commentary is an integral part of the definition of a true dystopia. A book with a vaguely dystopian setting, but which lacks this distinct issue-based element, is probably a different genre altogether: sci-fi, or post-apocalypse, or something else.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week-long blog series. I’ve definitely enjoyed writing it. I know I’ve defined things pretty narrowly, and that some people have broader definitions; I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This blog is filled with spoilers, from one end to the other, so stop now if you care about that kind of thing.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Well, now that those people are gone, we can talk about things openly. (Man, I hate those guys.)

First, I just need to make a complaint. I like to support bookstores and such, but I ended up trying to buy this book at Walmart (because I work in a cultural wasteland that has no bookstores, and I was buying this on my lunch break). (That cultural wasteland is: West Valley City.) Anyway, Walmart failed me. They didn’t have Mockingjay anywhere–no displays, no shelf space, no anything–and this was the day after the book came out! I had to go next door to the Sears Grand, if you can imagine. They seemed shocked to have a customer (and rightly so, because their shelves were mostly empty). But, they had Mockingjay, and I purchased it, and the fourteen dollars I paid doubled that store’s revenue for the entire week.

But on to the book.

I loved it, and it bugged me. But mostly I loved it.

My loves are many, but the biggest thing that I liked about the book is that it was written honestly. Mockingjay was the natural conclusion to The Hunger Games. Any society that would treat it’s children as is protrayed in the first book, would do equally cruel things elsewhere, and overthrowing that society would reveal the worst elements of it. So, while some people have complained about the gore and the shock, I think they were absolutely necessary, and I really couldn’t imagine the book without them.

But as far as natural conclusions go, I think Suzanne Collins excelled far beyond the requirements of the setting. Elana Johnson and I were recently talking about Hunger Games, and how the dystopian world was created. One worldbuilding technique for dystopia is to take a troublesome aspect of our culture, extend it out to it’s furthest, most dangerous conclusion, and look at the consequences. Using this model, I simplistically said that Hunger Games is an extension of our love for reality TV and voyeurism. Elana looked at it much deeper: it’s not just about reality TV, but it’s about using the media to control people.

Collins took that theme–controlling the populace through propaganda–and took it to its natural conclusions as well. Katniss has been a propaganda puppet in every book, though managed in a different way. In Hunger Games, she’s somewhat independent, but controlled by Haymitch, who teaches her how to perform on camera (and rewarding her when she creates the right TV story). In Catching Fire, she’s controlled by Snow, performing on camera to prove that she’s not a rebel leader–she’s just a girl in love. And in Mockingjay, she’s now controlled by the rebel government (which isn’t so much good, but the lesser of two evils), and she’s followed from photo-op to photo-op by stylists and producers.

(It’s worth noting that every propaganda campaign is foiled when Katniss rejects the control of her puppeteers–attempting suicide, destroying the force field, and killing Coin. She did all of it on camera, taking temporary control of the propaganda message being spread.)

So, to me, all of this kind of thing is what really makes the book work. There are smaller aspects of the plot and characters that I questioned, but it’s this ongoing consistency of the deeper themes and messages that really make Mockingjay a great conclusion.

I’m only going to quickly touch on the characters, since I didn’t really have any issues with them. I think that Katniss is also the natural continuation of Katniss–she’s exactly how we should have expected her to be. I think that there was a feeling among fans and internet forums that this book was going to be the romantic culmination: Team Peeta vs. Team Gale. But, while that is an interesting element of the book, I don’t think anything in the previous two books have led us to expect romantic happy endings. Katniss has been Katniss since the first chapter of the first book, and her actions and motivations have remained very consistent.

(Sidenote: From a storytelling perspective, I’ve never understood the Team Gale crowd. While Katniss liked him, he’s never had enough significant screen time for the readers to get to like him, and a romance where the readers don’t feel emotionally connected is the touch of death. So, I think that most Team Gale people were deluding themselves. They were Team Gale because they didn’t like Peeta; they liked the idea of Gale, not the actual character.) (TAKE THAT, TEAM GALE JERKS.)

(Another sidenote: I thoroughly enjoyed Peeta rediscovering Katniss and learning that she’s kind of a jerk. He’s always put up with her crap, because he’s in love with her, but when he’s no longer in love with her, he realizes that she’s always treated him terribly. I found that phase in his recovery delightful.) (This is not to say that I dislike Katniss. I just think it was a clever turn.)

A few problems:

I have two main complaints with Mockingjay, and they both have to do with the final third. First, it was hard to suspend my disbelief with all the “pods” in the Capitol. To have so many of them, and so creative and wacky, all over the place would have been insanely expensive and logistically impossible. (For example: the Meat Grinder or the street that opens up–when did they build those massive crazy things? How did they keep it a secret from the populace? How did could they afford them all (because, presumably, there are wacky, enormous things like the Meat Grinder all over the Capitol).

Second, and more important, everything that happens in the final third–from the point where Katniss enters the Capitol and heads for Snow–is ultimately a failure that doesn’t accomplish anything and costs a lot of lives. The government would have been overthrown just as effectively if she hadn’t gone (because the rebels get to Snow at the same time Katniss does). I have no problem with her failing; I just didn’t like that her failure didn’t mean anything. Nothing was gained, and the losses were only chalked up to “War sure stinks”, not “Katniss wasted all their lives for nothing”.

But, all of that said, I think this was a phenomenal book, and a really groundbreaking series. It’s always nice to see dystopia do well, but this one brought a whole new audience to the genre, and then kicked the genre’s butt.

Books
Catching Fire , by Suzanne Collins
I read The Hunger Games in one day, up on the sixth floor of the Tanner Building while I was supposed to be studying for a finance exam. I was not, as you can see, the typical MBA student.

I’ve been postponing reading Catching Fire because I just wasn’t expecting it to be as good as its predecessor. I don’t like love triangles (and there appeared to be a major one) and my assumptions about the plot were that it was going to be repetitive–a retread of Book One. I’m happy to say that I was very wrong on the latter worry, and the love triangle was mostly painless.

In fact, I think that Catching Fire can be used as an example of How To Write a Sequel. The author managed to capture the tone and feel of the first book perfectly, and managed to keep the plot elements that readers loved (the games, the preparations, etc) but their inclusion was necessary, inevitable and different, not fan service.

Movies
Wives and Daughters
We have recently acquired a modern miracle in the form of a NetFlix Wii DVD. (I don’t know the product’s real name.) The disk lets you access hundreds of movies on demand. And, more fun, the selection is based on NetFlix’s guesses about your movie preferences. It’s been fun (read: bizarre) to see what an algorithm assumes I like.

One of the movies it suggested (based on my wife’s preferences, I hope) is Wives And Daughters, a mid-nineteenth century movie that I want to call a Regency but which probably isn’t. The story is basically this: there are daughters and wives, and the main character is really cute. I don’t really know much more about it, despite it being eight hours long. My wife liked it. I was in the same room, but probably paying attention to something else.

All the President’s Men
One thing I find interesting about this movie (also a NetFlix Wii find) is that it is incredibly lean–there’s absolutely no fluff. Every scene and every line is important.

I think the thing I love the most about it is that they don’t dumb anything down. There’s no significant exposition, and they spend very little time explaining things to the audience. They expect you to sit still and pay attention. It’s a convoluted and complex mystery, and the writers throw you in headfirst. It’s refreshing.

I’ve always thought the ending was a little abrupt. It’s the only part of the movie that I’m not sold on. But, just like there’s very little exposition, there’s very little (or no) denoument. I don’t necessarily dislike the ending, but it’s jarring.

The Neverending Story
This was also a gift from NetFlix. I hadn’t seen it since I was probably seven years old. And, if you’re wondering if it holds up years later, the answer is an unequivocal, unwavering: HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THIS WEIRD THING?

RiffTrax: Twilight and New Moon
RiffTrax, if you’re unaware, is made by the people who did Mystery Science Theater. (If you’re unaware of MST, it was a TV program that showed old crappy movies, and three characters watched the movie and mocked it. It’s a classic of awesome awesomeness.) After MST was cancelled (due mainly to being unable to afford the rights to use movies), the writers got together and started RiffTrax. They record an audio commentary that you listen to while watching a regular DVD. And, because this avoids copyright issues, they are free to make fun of any bad movie, not just old crappy public domain ones.

That was a long introduction to a short review: RiffTrax offers audio commentaries for Twilight and New Moon, and they’re howlingly funny. Downloading a commentary only cost $3.99. You need to do this. Tonight.

TV
American Idol
As you know, I like American Idol. In particular, I like guessing who will win/lose. Hopefully you also know that Tristi Pinkston and I have a blog where we talk about this. We’re nerds. (Her more than me, though.)

Currently, I’m ahead of her in the predictions by two points. Depending on how merciful we’re being, however, she’s ahead of me by three. Consequently, we’re not being very merciful.

Music
Natalie Merchant, Leave Your Sleep
My favorite artist of all time (well, maybe besides the Beatles) is Natalie Merchant. You may recall her as the lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs in the 1980s. You might also recall her from her highly acclaimed 90s albums, Tigerlily and Ophelia. You likely won’t recall her from the 2000s, because she started getting weird. I still totally, completely love her.

And then this CD came out. It’s her very distinct folksy style, but the songs are all based on childrens’ poems, some old and some modern. The combination is very weird. All the lyrics are things that only kids would like (one extreme example being Ebeneezer Bleazer’s Ice Cream Store) but kids wouldn’t like the music. In other words, there’s no audience for this.

Except me, I guess, because I like it. I don’t love it, but I like it.

Band of Skulls, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey
I discovered Band of Skulls a year ago on indie radio in Minnesota, and instantly fell in ooey-gooey love with them. And then one of their songs was included on the New Moon soundtrack, so a million pre-teen girls are also in love with them. Sad.

Even so, the music is awesome.