Divergent Is A Bad Book, But Its Accidental Brilliance Is That It Completely Mauledthe YA Dystopian Genre

Divergent is a bad book, but its accidental brilliance is that it completely mauled the YA dystopian genre by stripping it down to its barest bones for maximum marketability, utterly destroying the chances of YA dystopian literature’s long-term survival 

W-what did you just say?

The hunger games & the selection parallels:

Caste system with numbers where you’re identified that way “I’m from twelve” “I’m a Five”

Randomly selected from every part of the country

Unfamiliarity with the Rich Lifestyle

Getting shipped off to the rich capital

Terrible dictator

Rebellions i guess ??

Makeovers and interviews

Discomfort with the makeovers and the interviews

Guy from hometown vs new guy who is wholesome

Difference ^ being that america actually gives a shit about them

Literally young children, I can’t even insult them becaude they’re a year older than/same age as me and I’m a dumbass so they are too

New and changed America with a different name

People in competition are slowly eliminated until the last one is standing

I’m going to keep reading and see if there are more but goddamn

As a longtime fan of The Hunger Games, I admit that I probably won’t be able to critically analyze how good the worldbuilding was for Ballad’s story for a while. I’m definitely still in the “wow, new information about one of my special interests!” phase. But if there’s one thing I already know was a smart decision - aside from making Reaping Day July 4th - it was the story of how the Games were created.

This crime against humanity that the masses in the Capitol have long accepted as a fun spectacle by the time the 74th rolls around? That Snow sees as a necessary means of maintaining control and preventing chaos in the districts? The whole thing literally started as a joke. A laugh two drunk friends shared while doing their homework. Then it got co-opted by their professor and put into practice as equal parts a means of punishing the districts and a self-serving experiment to validate her ideas about humanity’s need for control.

I’ve seen a few people complain that this cheapens the Games, but if anything, it makes the book even more haunting. How timely is this? We’re living in a world where a substantial number of people write in joke candidates or refuse to vote at all, yet are horrified when everyone is left to deal with the consequences. The fact that nobody can tell the difference between an actual headline and something from The Onion anymore has become a meme. And if the people voicing their concerns about the rise in authoritarianism around the world are anything to go by, the state of the world is, for all of its absurdity, no joke at all to the people who stand to gain the most from it.

The most uncomfortable part is that this is a prequel, where we know that the Games keep going for another 60 years. Given how symbolic everything in this series is, I think Casca and Crassus’ story is meant to be a warning.

Nobody thinks anything like the Hunger Games could ever actually happen, much less become normal.

Nobody would ever allow that to happen to their kids, to their world! It’s just a joke, right?

But the joke stops being funny when it becomes real and we have to live with it.

One of my favorite parts of the Hunger Games was how, in the beginning, Katniss was jealous amd resentful of the townies for not having to work in the coal mines. Then, over time, she realizes they aren't the true enemy. Then she sees the other district kids as so much better off than she is, because at least they don't come from district 12. But then she realizes they aren't the enemy either. And then she hates the other victors, before realizing they have all been exploited just as much as she has. So the enemy must be the Capitol citizens, who benefit from the exploitation of the districts, right? Wrong again. They are just uninformed and pampered people who have been kept in the dark about the true horrors faced by the rest of the country. Most of them, when push comes to shove, are perfectly willing to help the war efforts.

And slowly, over the three books, all theses separate factions of downtrodden people start to see each other as allies instead of enemies, and that is what propells them to eventual victory over the true enemy, the government that tried to pit them against each other. Just fun, totally fictional things to think about that have nothing whatsoever to do with our current life.

Sometimes I think about the Hunger games and I wonder what happened what exactly were the districts rebelling about? And what did they do that was so horrible that not only were they punished by seeing their children fight in a battle Royale to the death but their descendants, born long after anyone who was alive to remember the rebellion were as well.