Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,678
edits
Dystopia: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
(...I just realized how much straw is a feature of many political versions of this, and now have to add it to the War on Straw...) |
No edit summary |
||
Line 4:
A Dystopia (Ancient Greek for "[[Crapsack World|bad place]]"), also called a Negative Utopia, is a [[Speculative Fiction]] setting that comments on our own society and that a majority of us would fear to live in. The trick to creating a Dystopia is to take a social issue and turn it [[Up to Eleven]]. Better yet, do it with several issues, or perhaps all of them.
A dystopia is a social commentary literally in the background, as is a [[utopia]]n setting. The two settings share a problem in sometimes being a little too one-note. The author is thinking "capitalism sucks!", for instance, and everything wrong with the world turns out be clearly the fault of nasty [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]s and their nasty, greedy [[Mega Corp|megacorporations]]. Conversely, it could be "governments suck!" and the corporations are the last line of defense against the evil, totalitarian [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|bureaucrats]]. The author could believe that [[Love Hurts]], and thus there is [[No Sex Allowed]] and [[Emotions vs. Stoicism|feeling Emotions]] is a punishable offense. Whichever, it is just one note - often [[The War on Straw|a straw note]].
The better dystopias seem to be about how a multitude of things have gone wrong, and now here we are, surviving with as much grace as possible. It is also a practice in literature to create a dystopia through the [[Deconstruction]] of an earlier creator's [[Utopia]], showing how horrible it is to live in one. Another use is to serve as a [[Big Bad]] for [[The Hero]] and his friends to revolt against; these are more likely to be toppled, or at least escaped from, than others.
Line 16:
May have [[Peace and Love Incorporated]] and [[Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul]], and frequently have an [[Ascetic Aesthetic]] towards buildings. Compare with [[Author Tract]], [[After the End]], [[Just Before the End]], [[Villain World]], and [[Cyberpunk]]. Contrast with [[Utopia]] and [[Mary Suetopia]], the latter often an unintentional Dystopia created by the author.
See [[Dystopia Is Hard]] and [[
For more types of '''Dystopias''', see [[You Would Not Want to Live In Dex]]. For the game, click [[Dystopia (video game)|here]].
| |||