#split me in two like a final film adaptation of a dystopian teen novel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bux-blurbs · 5 years

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Dystopian fictions depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction”. Susan Collin's Hunger Games, Veronica Roth's Divergent series and James Dashner's Maze Runner series are popular dystopian science-fictions which consist of a few similar concepts and they really are amazing novels to dig into. I much prefer to read books before watching the film adaptation so that I can imagine and creatively picture the characters and events. Dystopian worlds have existed in all sorts of forms - whether we look at Narnia under the White Witch or George Orwell's Animal Farm or Frank Herbert's Dune - but these science fiction dystopians are a new twist on the genre. A few glaring similarities between HG & Divergent: One guy character who is so incredibly perfect you wonder where they make these men. (Peeta, Four) Check. One main female character who emerges as a leader and grieves for the losses she has suffered as a result of War. (Katniss, Tris) Check. The main guy is subjected to some treatment which makes him think that his female love interest is his enemy. (Peeta is implanted with fake memories, Four is injected with simulation serum) Check. The people are divided into different sections and each section's population acts in a particular way or engages in a specific profession. (Districts, Factions) Check. We can find young protagonists who are pitted against each other in winner-take-all battles to the death which reflect to what adolescence have turned into. If you spend your early teens being told that your future depends on how well you do on your exams and on effectively simulating the appearance of a socially, politically, and artistically engaged super-being.... well, you have no problem identifying with youngish heroes who must emit a constant stream of miraculous exploits or be crushed. HUNGER GAMES The Capitol is the cruel Government of the twelve districts of Panem which holds a tournament every year called the Hunger Games. Each of the country's 12 districts must offer one girl and one boy between the ages of 12 and 18 to fight to the death on live TV. Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl from District 12, volunteers to take her younger sister Primrose's spot in the tournament. From her district, she's joined by Peeta Mellark. In the second book, Catching Fire, the Capitol are furious at Katniss for starting a second rebellion, so they create a special version of the Hunger Games for all the previous victors, which means that she and Peeta must return. During these games, they create a team of victors, who manage to destroy the arena and escape to District Thirteen, which most people thought did not exist. However, the Capitol capture Peeta, and they destroy District Twelve. The last book, Mockingjay tells the story of Katniss leading the revolution. They rescue Peeta, but he has been tortured and now he hates and fears Katniss. A team of rebels including Peeta and Katniss then go on a mission to assassinate President Snow in the Capitol, but Katniss' sister Primrose is killed by a bomb. Katniss later discovers that the president of the rebels made this bomb, so she kills her own president in place of Snow. She then returns to her home, District Twelve, to try to recover with Peeta. At the end of the book we see them married with two children. DIVERGENT When I first read Divergent, I was so awed that it got me hooked straightaway and I finished it in less than 24 hours. The story revolves around a young girl name Beatrice, aged sixteen, who lives in a divided society where people are split into five factions according to their personal qualities. The factions are Dauntless (the brave), Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful) and Erudite (the intelligent), and each individual must choose a faction at the age of 16. 'Abnegation fulfills the need for selfless leaders in government; Candor provides trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite supplies intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity gives understanding counselors and caretakers; and Dauntless provides protection from threats both within and without.' Her aptitude test result is Divergent which apparently means that she possess multiple personality traits. She eventually choose Dauntless during the Choosing Ceremony and strive to be a member of that faction, otherwise she'll turn out to be a factionless, in complete isolation and in abject poverty which sounds like a fate worse than death. Once, she entered into the Dauntless faction, she changed her name to Tris. Divergent reflects the contemporary division of our society and also all those who find it difficult to fit in, can also relate. I wonder what would have been my aptitude test and which faction I would ultimately choose and came to the conclusion that Candor and Amity suit me best. 'We Will Rock You' style: Clap, clap, stomp. Clap, clap, stomp. Clap, clap, stomp. Clap, clap, stomp. We are, we are DAUNTLESS We are, we are DAUNTLESS Beatrice, Now called Tris, Made a big change Playing on the trains, She became a Dauntless one day She's got mud on her face A parental disgrace Now she'll be kickin your ass all over the place Singin' We are, we are DIVERGENT We are, we are DIVERGENT Tobias is a Dauntless, Divergent Shoutin' to them all, We can take on the world today Erudite got blood on their face We'll put them in their place Into the past, out of our Fear Landscapes Singin' We are, we are INSURGENT We are, we are INSURGENT The simulation training is really fascinating. 'The simulation stimulate the amygdale which is responsible for processing fear, induce a hallucination based on fear, and then transmit the data to a computer to be processed and observed.' 'Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.' 'It's basically a struggle between your thalamus, which is producing fear, and your frontal lobe, which makes decisions. But the simulation is all in your head, so even though you feel like someone is doing it to you, it's just you, doing it to yourself.' The less number of fears you've got and the less time you take to confront your fear, the most successful you are. This also left me wondering about the numerous fears I'll face if ever I'd taken part in such simulation. The last book, Allegiant, revealed blatant truths about the world Tris was living in which boost up my excitement but that did not last longer. The fun and laughter is over. I remember finding myself staring blankly in disbelief as it was an ending I absolutely didn't see coming and to be honest, I find the main character's sacrifice comes off as utterly meaningless. As it turns out, the world has apparently been so full of assholes that the government decided to eliminate the genes in citizens that caused dishonestly, selfishness, cowardice, stupidity, and aggression. Unfortunately, this backfired and just created more assholes that were more asshole-y than before, that is genetic damaged people. Hence, the government constructs gigantic city-sized behavioural experiments all across the country and get volunteers who had their genes screwed with to have their memories wiped and stick them into a city and force them to choose a faction. Eventually these people will reproduce enough times until they finally manage to have "genetically pure" (a.k.a. Divergent) babies that are free from messed up genes. The story shifted from the old unresolved conflict between the factionless and the factions to a whole new conflict between the genetically pure and the genetically damaged people. Much time and energy are spent fighting for something that isn't really a problem for the most probable reason: they have been taught that it is a problem. MAZE RUNNER The story starts off with a boy named Thomas who find himself in a strange place called the Glade where there are other guys known as Gladers. Outside the glade is a maze which has to be solved for the Gladers to be out. There is one threat stopping them from figuring out the maze, one threat stopping them from going out at night and from going too far into the maze, horrific animals that go by the names of grievers which are giant bug-like creatures. Many of them lost their lives fighting grievers and finding their way back, but eventually the rest of them made it till the end only to discover that they are all suffering from the most horrible disease known to mankind called The Flare. In the second book, The Scorch Trials, some of the boys discover another group of girls who also underwent the same experiment. Solving the maze was supposed to be the end but instead of freedom the Gladers find themselves faced with another trial. Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, much of the earth is a wasteland. They met Cranks who are people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim... and meal. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. In the last book, The Death Cure, we learn more about the Flare. The Flare virus was engineered by the founder of World In Catastrophe Kill-zone Experiment Department (WICKED) in an attempt to control the human population because there was so many people dying, the founder says that the virus was supposed to wear off after a while but the virus got out of control and now only the immunes can stop it before the virus kills all of the human species. Nothing mentions on how the immunes were suddenly 'immune' to the virus, and the number of them is massive, it is like as if it is an experiment to see who is strong enough to withstand the heat, this basically indicates that if they can survive the Flare virus, they can survive the heat, but that got out of control so they are now killing and experimenting on the immunes. In the end, everyone goes through the Flat Trans, and on the other side is a paradise. Like a legit paradise with green everywhere and an ocean and everything. So, eventually the Gladers really made it and are free. But that's not really the end. We get another epilogue with a memorandum from Chancellor Paige. In her memorandum, she says that the paradise for Thomas and the 200 or so Immunes was WICKED's Plan B. Once their Plan A had been ruined, they decided the only way to save the human race was to get a bunch of immune people to start civilization all over again; to do this, she made Brenda and Jorge help Thomas make it to paradise. In the end, WICKED does end up saving the human race, despite the awful crimes they've committed against humanity.

#books #hunger games #divergent #maze runner

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