Dystopian Turning Points And Where To Find Them

Sarah Twilight

Ah dystopias. 

A world full of either misery or the illusions of happiness. 

Dystopias and the Like

We all love to read about how the characters survive the after effects of a collapsed society. Nothing keeps you up at night better than finding out how far the rebellion will go to defeat the evil government, or how the character will save the ones they love. Whether you love them or hate them you have to admit that dystopias are cool. 

And today I’m going to be writing about the turning points in a dystopia….and where to find them.

Why Turning Points are of the Most Importance

The one thing that is usually seen in dystopias is that this world has been this way for awhile. A routine has been established that the higher powers want to keep.

When writing a dystopia one must think about what makes the situation they are writing about different than other situations in the past.

 When writing such things it’s good to ask these questions. Why hasn’t something like this happened before? What makes this hero’s story different? Why hasn’t anyone gotten away with defying the so-called higher powers? At some part of the story there must be a turning point to make this situation different. That gets the ball rolling to bring down society as we know it. 

Today we shall look at dystopian novels and find their turning point.

There will be spoils for The Giver, the Maze Runner, and the Hunger Games. 

Do not read if you hate spoilers!! You have been warned!!!

Seriously guys there are major spoilers!

I mean it!!

Since you are still reading this I will assume that you have either ignored my warnings or you have read the books I just mentioned. (If you haven’t read them you need to, they’re classics!)

Two Types

In my mind there are two categories of dystopian turning points. We’ll call them Personal and Thrust-Upon. 

A Personal turning point is when the character actively makes the choice to stir things up. 

A Thrust-Upon turning point is when some other thing happens to stir things up and the protagonists are thrust into things.

 Now most dystopias are a bit of both but one is usually more prominent than the other.

Personal 

Take The Giver. 

In the communities things have basically been the same since their beginning. There is an established cycle that no one cares to break since they gave up the capability of memory or big emotions. 

Things change a bit when Jonas starts to train to become the next Receiver of Memory. He begins to see things differently, he becomes capable of deep emotions due to the memories he receives. 

However, the real turning point happens when Jonas wants to see what the process of Release is, since his little brother Gabe has to go through that since he does not come up to the standard the community has for its babies. (It’s kind of hard to explain, you have to read the book to understand). When Jonas sees that Release is really death he freaks out because that means they are going to kill Gabe! 

Jonas asks the Giver why they don’t feel any remorse. 

The Giver explains that they are incapable of love and therefore have no reason not to do the things they do. 

It’s here that Jonas makes the choice to run away with Gabe. 

Once he leaves the communities and goes into Elsewhere (the place outside the communities if you haven’t figured it out yet) the memories he has (which is almost all of them) will be released into the people, allowing them to feel and be able to love.

The Giver is an example of a Personal turning point. 

The reason things change in this dystopia is because Jonas makes the personal decision to save his brother which leads to people getting back their memories.

So, The Giver is a Personal turning point, let us move onto an example of a Thrust-Upon dystopian turning point.

Thrust Upon 

 (Drum roll please!) 

The Maze Runner!

When Thomas wakes up in the Glade he is confused to say the least. 

But, with the help of Chuck, he learns about the routine and makeshift community that the Gladers have had to make in order to survive living in the middle of a maze full of dangers such as the horrifying Grievers (seriously those creatures are nightmare worthy). 

Thomas is full of questions which leads to him wanting to become a Runner (the Gladers who explore the Maze, trying to find a way out). 

Now Thomas may be making some difference, but the turning point happens when the Creators (the unknown makers of the Maze and the people who send up the new guys via the Box) send a girl up to the Glade: Teresa. 

 She carries a note saying that she is the last one (ominous much?). 

Thomas finds out that he and Teresa can speak telepathically, which kind of freaks him out especially when she tells him she has “triggered the end.”

 After that the Maze begins to go wonky (in dangerous ways) and it causes the Gladers (some of them anyway) to leave the Glade and brave the Maze. 

In the end they leave the Maze due to a discovery Thomas and the Runner Minho make. 

This dystopian turning point is a Thrust-Upon turning point. 

The Creators ( a. k. a. the organization WICKED) are the ones who send Thomas and Teresa to the maze which leads to things going down. 

I’m not sure if this is the best example since the dystopian overlords WICKED aren’t really defeated till the Death Cure (the third book in the series).

So, Maze Runner, Thrust-Upon turning point.

In a way, Personal and Thrust-Upon turning points can be applied to most genres, but the turning points in dystopias can be most important since usually society as they know it is at stake as well as some other things.

Now let’s look at an example of a mixture of both Personal and Thrust-Upon dystopic turning points.

A Mixture 

 May the odds be ever in my favor! Let’s look at the Hunger Games!!

The reason I say that the Hunger Games is a mixture is because it is. 

At first things begin to change in Panem when Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games. The thing is stuff like that has probably happened before so that isn’t the turning point. 

The Personal turning point sort of happens when Peeta announces his love for Katniss and she decides to play along to get sponsors, which helps the two survive the Arena. 

When Katniss and Peeta hear that now only one can live instead of two from the same District as the Capital had announced, they make the personal decision to defy the Capital by threatening suicide if they both aren’t allowed to live. 

This works but it makes Katniss the face of the rebellion. Which leads to the next turning point: Katniss might have lived the rest of her life without changing things if the Capital hadn’t threatened her. 

In book two and three Katniss is thrust into playing the Hunger Games again because of the Quarter Quell.

 Also she and Peeta have to prove their love for each other after President Snow threatens them. 

All these things lead to Katniss joining the rebellion in book three which leads to the downfall of the Capital.

Conclusion 

So in dystopian novels there can be both Personal and Thrust-Upon turning points, like in the Hunger games trilogy. 

Dystopian turning points are most important because in dystopian novels the antagonist isn’t necessarily one person; and a lot of the time  protagonists are fighting the society as a whole. 

Recognizing what happened to change that society can really benefit you if you are trying to write a good novel in the genre.

Well I hope this blog has been of some help. I love dystopias so writing about them was fun. Please come back for more beautiful scribblings from my keyboard.

Yours truly,

 Sarah Twilight!