Teenage Future Dystopia: What the hell happened to the rest of the world?

[Soviet Heavy]

Since teenage future dystopias are all the rage these days, I have a question, and it's in the title. But I'll repeat it because shut up. What the hell happened to the rest of the world?

The Hunger Games, Divergent, and I'm assuming The Giver, all appear to take place in North America, presumably in the former United States. But I see little mention of the world beyond these small regions presented in the films.

In Hunger Games, what happens outside of the Districts and the Capital? Do the other countries just watch these nutjobs continue their bloodsports without intervening? Same with Divergent. There's a big electric fence around Chicago. Does the rest of the world just stop outside the fence, or do people look at them from the outside?

I feel there is a metaphor here that could be picked up on regarding American Isolationism in the theoretical dystopian future, but nobody seems to go for it. They opt for dark future as high school demographics, and the world stops beyond the borders of each society.

The grandaddy of modern dystopia, 1984, at least explained somewhat how the rest of the world worked outside of Oceana, and how the balance of power was kept intact. What is stopping a potential superpower outside of North America from capitalizing on the weakness and social unrest in these stories, and just launching an invasion? Why hasn't somebody tried to make a new NATO and send peacekeeping forces?

Or maybe they're just teen's first science fiction stories and I'm reading too much into it. I dunno, maybe Harry Potter spoiled me for expecting decent world building in my youth fiction. At least that story had the actual excuse of being in school, thus justifying whole chapter detours simply examining the daily lives of the wizarding world.

 

[CaptainCoxwaggle]

Battle Royale had the explanation of an Alternative timeline where Japan formed the Greater Asian Republic in the aftermath of WW2, hinting of a military victory and a powerful state that maintains it's own sovereignty.

Hunger Games has a very silly premise, when someone rebels against the state, sending their children to fight in televised death matches typically generates more resentment to the regime and fosters further rebellion.

Then again, 1984 is a giant strawman of "ebil totalitarian gov'mint" in between him vomiting his sexual fantasies and personal inadequacies so western dystopian novels haven't fallen far away from the tree.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Its the fact of whom makes the films, who funds the film, and the writer's union. If other countries wanted to be represented, and in many cases, foreign films do this --- then they would then have to make a film from someone in another part of the hemisphere of which a massive audience would follow.


I wouldn't agree that 1984 was simply a straw man, there are a lot things within that book which, unfortunately, is very much a reality today minus letting someone mumble and shake at a coffee shop somewhere before eventually being shot by the said State.

For instance --- recall how the people would hold up signs stating they were at war with one country and then in the next breath, they would throw down their old signs and suddenly be peddling a new enemy with the flick of a hand? That is the US right now and whose a Terrorist and who isn't. One day we say the rebels against Assad are freedom fighters and then a month later, they are the scourge of the Middle East with all of the news broadcasts from CNN to FOX trumpeting " THEY MUST BE DESTROYED!"

I'd say George Orwell was a very accurate soothsayer.

 

[Foolery]

Battle Royale had the explanation of an Alternative timeline where Japan formed the Greater Asian Republic in the aftermath of WW2, hinting of a military victory and a powerful state that maintains it's own sovereignty.

I loved Battle Royale. The setting works well, if you take into consideration Japan's far past, such as the Edo period when they isolated themselves for 250 years or so.

 

[Zontar]

Jeniffer Government had a simple explanation in its setting: outside of the US (in this case all of North and South America plus Australia and New Zealand because conquest) still exsist, they just don't trade or have any real relationship due to mutual hatred of the other's ideology ((possibly) socialist Europe vs ultra libertarian America) coupled with the logitical impossibility of either going to war with the other (for the US, there just isn't an army that could get there at all, for Europe, occupation would be impossible).

 

[Thaluikhain]

What is stopping a potential superpower outside of North America from capitalizing on the weakness and social unrest in these stories, and just launching an invasion? Why hasn't somebody tried to make a new NATO and send peacekeeping forces?

Well North Korea, and bits of Africa come to mind.

I dunno, maybe Harry Potter spoiled me for expecting decent world building in my youth fiction. At least that story had the actual excuse of being in school, thus justifying whole chapter detours simply examining the daily lives of the wizarding world.

In relation to that...is the ministry a British or International thing?

Sometimes it's just part of Britain, but sometimes it seems to be the whole wizarding world. Nobody says to cross the channel and connect the French version when things go bad.

 

[Queen Michael]

In Divergent, it's kind of a spoiler to answer that, as far as I can tell. I checked the plot on the web, and not to tell you too much --- I can't reveal what's the deal with the rest of the world.

 

[Username Redacted]

What the hell happened to the rest of the world?

From what I've seen (of adaptations) and read (of the novels mentioned) I'm inclined to go with some combination of suspect writing quality and poor world building. I should also, in the interest of full disclosure, let you know that I am nothing resembling the target audience for these works.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Haven't you hear? In the future the world will consist entirely of High School age teenagers.

In all seriousness, I haven't seen/read The Hunger Games, Divergent, or the Giver, but I would assume that what we see in the film/book is just a small sampling of what the rest of the world is like. Like in the The Hunger Games, there could be a different Hunger Games going on in Europe, Asia, and possibly Australia and Japan. I'm just guessing.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

I dunno, maybe Harry Potter spoiled me for expecting decent world building in my youth fiction. At least that story had the actual excuse of being in school, thus justifying whole chapter detours simply examining the daily lives of the wizarding world.

In relation to that...is the ministry a British or International thing?

Sometimes it's just part of Britain, but sometimes it seems to be the whole wizarding world. Nobody says to cross the channel and connect the French version when things go bad.

The Ministry of Magic shown in the books is just the British version; in the Goblet of Fire, they talk about the various representatives from other governments at the Quidditch match. As far as I can tell, each country has their own mini-government that handles wizard stuff (which is semi-related to the real government, if Britain is any judge), and the International Confederation of Wizards is like Magic UN.

OT: Usually the dystopia is explained by an apocalypse; for example, I think it's implied that there was a nuclear war in the Hunger Games universe, and this area is all the people who have survived that we know about; they could probably build satellites and drones to scour the world and find other people, but the government seems pretty insular, so they don't. It's like the handwaving you see a lot in fantasy stories; this may be only one continent on a planet, but that's where the story happens so you have to accept certain limits, otherwise you end up going down the Tolkein road of forcing a sprawling world to fit into a story that really doesn't need to be loaded with all that world-building.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Didn't you know? When you're in high school, that is the world. The 'outside' world doesn't exist at all. Only what happens in high school matters. At least, that's how I look at it.

I do admit to pondering this very question sometimes. So this country has fallen apart. What about the rest of the world? The only times I can think of when that's addressed are in the movie version of V for Vendetta and the book 1984. In the movie, there's a brief news clip saying that the U.S. has fallen apart as well and Britain is refusing to help because of revenge for the Boston Tea Party, and in 1984, that creepy director guy says that everything about the outside world is made up. There is no war, no enemy, no nothing. It's all just to keep people in line.
Of course, then he comes around as says that he's lying about that too, so it's impossible to know the truth, but then that's the whole point of the book.

 

[krazykidd]

Don't we do the exact same thing with North Korrea? I mean we see it from the outside and say " oh north korrea".

So i can definately see that being a possibilty.

 

[Vault101]

I imagine in most scenarios Australia just kind of drifted off and was never heard from again

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I don't really see how the Harry Potter really was better at setting building than any of the series you listened. Sure the British Wizarding world was fairly fleshed out by the end of the series (though mostly in the later books when more time is spent by Harry and his crew outside Hogwarts), but we only get little hints at the rest of the world, even if you assume the Muggle world doesn't really diverge much from our "timeline". We know a bit about French and Bulgarian wizards along with hints at other parts of the wizarding world but we are still left mostly in the dark. Are they divided upon political lines we might recognize or are they sticking to older divisions that we might have never been aware of? What's the history of the Wizarding world and what were its major events (if it hasn't been stuck in a sort of stasis from the middle ages)?

 

[debtcollector]

In the movie, there's a brief news clip saying that the U.S. has fallen apart as well and Britain is refusing to help because of revenge for the Boston Tea Party

I don't think they refused help because of the Tea Party specifically. That was just a quip from their super-fascist propaganda mouthpiece. I don't think it's ever explained in the movie (and I don't think I'll ever read the graphic novels) but it sounds like Britain was busy handling its own problems at the time--severe bioengineered plague and possibly some sort of nuclear fallout.

OT: It really is telling that books marketed towards teenagers--a demographic that's so often particularly self-centered--absolutely refuse to show any part of the world that doesn't involve the audience-insert character. "Look here," it says. "This person is you, and everything he/she does is the most important thing happening in this world." I'd love to see that the Hunger Games was really just an even larger Hunger Game put on by every non-U.S. country: watch the U.S. tear itself apart, and then, when they finally start to rebuild, they realize that they've been kept on a leash by the rest of the world this whole time. Then blow them up again and start the whole thing over.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Almost all dystopias would not work in the real world. A nation that only oppresses and does everything to keep it's people miserably will fall apart without outside input. Such dystopian policies would destroy wealth and the economy. Starving people are desperate people. Desperate people are rebellious people.

The most realistic Dystopia is the Imperium of man. Yes, Warhammer 40K, with it's half naked women wielding chainswords got this right.

Corruption, factionism, civil wars, rebellions (and not even Chaos led ones, although it is often "at first"), technology is lost, entire planets being forgotten because of filing errors, this is the daily fact of life in the Imperium. There are all kinds of implications that the Empire of man is dying, slowly, but it's so big that the rate of expansion is (barely) outpacing the rate of decay, and it will take awhile for it to just die.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DystopiaIsHard

 

[soren7550]

I think for most of these books, it's one part doesn't matter to the story being told, one part the book isn't terribly deep/good to begin with.

 

[Veylon]

The grandaddy of modern dystopia, 1984, at least explained somewhat how the rest of the world worked outside of Oceana, and how the balance of power was kept intact. What is stopping a potential superpower outside of North America from capitalizing on the weakness and social unrest in these stories, and just launching an invasion? Why hasn't somebody tried to make a new NATO and send peacekeeping forces?

This should make quite a story. You have all these brainwashed people in this hermetically sealed society, with only a vague notion that something is vaguely wrong with this. And then all these weird, nigh-inconceivable people sweep in and throw everything they know into chaos. It'd be a massive culture shock, at the very least.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Almost all dystopias would not work in the real world. A nation that only oppresses and does everything to keep it's people miserably will fall apart without outside input. Such dystopian policies would destroy wealth and the economy. Starving people are desperate people. Desperate people are rebellious people.

The most realistic Dystopia is the Imperium of man. Yes, Warhammer 40K, with it's half naked women wielding chainswords got this right.

Corruption, factionism, civil wars, rebellions (and not even Chaos led ones, although it is often "at first"), technology is lost, entire planets being forgotten because of filing errors, this is the daily fact of life in the Imperium. There are all kinds of implications that the Empire of man is dying, slowly, but it's so big that the rate of expansion is (barely) outpacing the rate of decay, and it will take awhile for it to just die.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DystopiaIsHard

Dunno about that...is it that hard to just take a real oppressive government from history and swap the names around?

Though, there is a tendency to make things OtT in case the reader can't see that something bad is going on, I guess.

 

[Rolaoi]

Presumably, the rest of the world is in various other states of decay, and the problems of one particularly crazy tyrant is no concern of theirs when there are a dozen other pressing issues. You can really come up with any sort of explanation. While their merit as literature is dubious, going outside the boundaries of the story like this is a little like asking why nobody just rescued the guys in the Cave or why someone went to the trouble to make such an elaborate shadow puppet theater, or why nobody outside Omelas decided to do something about the crazy cult locking children in cages.