#it's not uncommon to see fan theories built on things in the second and third categories since it's so hard to keep track

[dude1818]

For most stories, content falls into one of two categories:

Material that is described in canon

Material that is not described in canon

The former category includes any events that occur in the text of the book (or on-screen in the show, etc). The latter category is everything else: fanfic, headcanons, fan theories, technically word of god (which is really just suggested headcanons)

Sometimes, the author is ambitious and includes a third category:

Material that is written in canon but doesn’t actually occur in canon

The Locked Tomb takes this to a pretty big extreme. Around half of the second book never actually happened: it’s either Harrow’s hallucinations or Harrow’s false dreambubble recreation of the what happened in the first book. This is also the B-plot of the third book: John’s dreambubble recreation of a memory of a story told to Alecto. We’re three steps removed from what actually happened back then!

[dystopian-houndoom]

The Environment is a Social Construct(?!)

Okay, looking the semi-satirical title of this entry, I’m sure you have a lot of questions...or none at all at the preposterousness of the statement. All of that is fine and dandy, so allow me to take a few minutes of your time to explain myself in hopes of not looking too much like a crazy PC snowflake using terms willy nilly.

First of all, we’re back at it again looking at dystopian environments with the new materialist look. If you want to look at a more detailed explanation of new materialism, you can check out my previous entry here. Now let’s focus on one of the major ideals of new materialism, and that is the goal to break down the ideas of binaries that many of us have grown to understand. We’ll start with an exercise of the mind (it’s simple, don’t worry). Close your eyes and think of the first thing that comes to mind when you read the word ‘environment.’ What did you see? A natural landscape of some sort? This doesn’t mean that I can read minds or anything - this is something that most people I’ve talked with think of (not to mention ‘natural landscape’ is a pretty broad term). Why do people think of the natural ‘world’ when they think of environment? That’s all thanks to the social construct that society has built to create a binary and divide between humans and human-dominant environments and those with less direct human influence. It further reinforces that idea that areas untouched by human hands are something to be cherished, feared, respected, and/or conquered. Regardless, the main idea is that we generally think, for better or worse, that human-dominated spaces are not environments. New materialism recognizes the construct that we’ve developed and seeks to break all of that down to show everything as they are and how everything, regardless of categories we classify things into, affect one another. Forests are environments just as much as cities are - each contain various elements that affect one another and create an interesting and unique dynamic. New materialism is deeply rooted in ecological theory too - environments are like organisms. Organisms all have different components that make the whole, and each affect one another to balance or disrupt homeostasis within the organism.

That’s enough of my explanation on new materialism - now onto new materialism in dystopian environments. A lot of societies we see today reinforce the constructed binaries: man versus nature, living versus nonliving, alive versus dead, artificial versus natural. However, if we look at successful dystopian novels and other stories with that new materialist view, a lot of those binaries are challenged and even eliminated. Of course, this causes a lot of people to face and even challenge these social constructs and sometimes we can’t quite get ourselves over those ideas we’ve understood for so long. Let’s look at two different examples of successful dystopian novels and how people talk about environments in each.

First, let’s talk about that tried and true book we love to adore and analyze - The Hunger Games. I know, I’m once again talking about Suzanne and Katniss, but I just can’t resist - it’s too good of an example! A major talking point for The Hunger Games is The Hunger Games itself and what takes place in the arena. The arena itself is an environment where there are multiple agents at play, and it is not limited to the man versus nature nor is it the man versus man dichotomy a lot of people think of. And yet, when we talk about The Hunger Games, we talk about individual dichotomies that are factors in the whole. For example, I love gushing about the dynamics between the tributes and their fight against one another for survival. The man versus man dynamic is on full display with other agents taking a backseat and are discussed indirectly to support the main construct of man versus man. Is that the sole dynamic at play that Katniss is affect by? Absolutely not. We can also talk about her fight for survival alone and her reliance on survival skills to find the optimal place to hide and find water and food. We can also talk about her interactions with Haymitch and their back-and-forth communications through sponsored gifts. We can most certainly talk about Katniss and her defiant acts against the Capitol and her fight against the artificially-created dilemmas the Gamemakers cook up. It is SO easy to wedge ourselves into these false dichotomies and ignore the fact that all of these dynamics are intertwined and affect one another. Not to mention the fact that the man versus nature dichotomy doesn’t apply perfectly to the arena - the Gamemakers and the environment they design is affected by both wildlife, man-made components, and hybrids of the two through muttations. What I notice the most in discussions about The Hunger Games is the breakdown of all of these components into digestible constructed dichotomies we are all comfortable with discussing. Hell, look at the promotional work they produced for the movie:

And this last one, which is a fan made poster:

What do all three of these have in common? They seem to focus on one or two of the specific dilemmas Katniss faces. The first looks at Katniss versus a totalitarian entity, the second with a similar but more vague message, and the third looking at Katniss versus some sort of wilderness with a potential interpersonal relationship dilemma. They limit the scope of The Hunger Games to make it palatable and waters down the dynamics actually at play. Of course, you don’t want promotional posters revealing everything before you’ve even seen the damn movie, but you might be slightly misled or surprised at what you get if you went to see the movie based on one of these posters alone. 

Now let’s look at a very different example that is treated similarly. The Road by Cormac McCarthy presents a dismal atmosphere where a father and son duo follow a road south in hopes of finding a place with reliable food sources and free of threatening predators like cannibals and thieves. This dystopian environment, which is in the midst of an apocalypse, shows the complete destruction of society and all of life as we know it. Animals are sparse, buildings and forests are are grey and broken, and human interaction is uncommon but deadly. All of those dichotomies are completely broken down and are only glimpsed at through small tidbits, like the pair finding a lone can of Coke symbolizing a relic of the civilized world. The artistic choice in the movie adaptation to keep colors to a natural palette with little to no variation really adheres to the new materialist look that everything affects one another and categorizing ideas is unnecessary in such a dangerous world. Take a look at some screenshots from the movie:

Not even the Coke can gets a shiny exterior - social constructs really break down when society breaks down along with it. Of course, this is difficult for us to talk about without, one again, breaking down the book into various interactions and dilemmas. The cannibals versus the pair, the climate versus the pair, you name it. However, it’s much more difficult to talk about the book as a whole without talking about all of the individual agents affecting the father and son. In that way, the book was successful in blurring these dichotomies and possibly looking at the protagonists as individual entities and how they work through different agents along the road to hope.

Man, things really took a turn from the environment is a social construct nonsense to the bleak color palette of the 2009 adaptation of The Road. In hopes of ending on a brighter note, I hope everyone is staying safe, eating well, and possibly thinking about new materialism?