Saturday 26 March 2016

Trinity of Young Adult Fiction Problems



Welcome back to the Randomizer!

Today I want to talk about something that has, frankly, bugged me for a while. A series of films based off various popular series of books that, I believe, are big money makers, the second biggest box office makers behind comic book movies today, and perhaps continuing to be as such at least until the next year, but perhaps can’t really be argued as thought-provoking, the lowering quality that are noticeable in many of them. You know what I am talking about. 



Young adult films, particularly dystopias, are monsters of box office guaranteed to bring in money for film studios, yet perhaps now starting to go on the way out, due to losing interest from movie-goers, less-then mediocre opinions in reviews which has been a case for a good time, and more damningly, lack of an significant identity due to being similar in some cases like The Hunger Games and The Divergent Trilogy, as well as perhaps lack of quality into the world building.

So why do something that has, again, been talked about over and again, what can be added to the conversation that’s new? Well there are definitely a few things that I have yet to see and should be talked about: How these fictional dictatorships compare to actual dictatorships, are love triangles just dramatic convenience, and are the main characters of these stories developed well, or just, as internet comedian Doug Walker had said in his editorial ‘Is Twilight the Worst Thing ever?’, skins for the readers, to put themselves into these characters? Questions that haven’t had so much publicity bar the odd few characters, and will probably never be asked again since I’m very good at procrastination. Those three questions are important to young adult films, because they show innately the quality of the stories, from the characters to the worlds they inhabit, more difficult with the dystopias as I will come to.

I will admit, I haven’t read any of the young adult books that will be the focus of this article, and this will be quite biased towards the mainstream side of the young adult spectrum. But from the experience I do have watching The Hunger Games, the first Divergent film, and…the abomination, please don’t make me say its name. I instantly become ill at that moment. Anyway, that experience of watching has given me some sort of understanding of what are these young adult movies about, to talk about the written quality behind the works created.

...and able to have the sick bucket close by, which is always good...


I can probably hear some of you saying, “Oh Simon, come on. You’re picking on fantasy novels, novels that have different meanings behind them, and reflect what goes on in society as a whole”. That’s not what I am going to argue about. What I’m arguing against is the illogical holes of HOW these reflections happened. It’s not a problem having an enemy that reflects one side of society, but it is a problem without understanding HOW that society works, or HOW the enemies work. The thought crosses my mind about how stories need some logic to it, instead of ‘Because…because!’. That’s really the big question: HOW, and just as importantly, if not more, WHY?

Which leads us nicely to the article of the month: A Trinity of Young Adult Novel Problems. Again, spoilers. Sorry!

She's deadly with bananas


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1)      The Dictatorships

An obvious problem when you’re reading one of many dystopian novels is the dictatorship, and how it works in the novel. The couple examples I’m going to give are The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins, and The Divergent Series, written by Veronica Roth.

The Hunger Games evil society is called ‘The Capital’, rich, powerful, and technologically advanced, focusing on many social aspects of fashion, changing appearances, and using latest technology to serve their own purposes. The Capital dominates the 12 Districts, poor and bedraggled, a 13th district being destroyed when all of them revolted and lost against The Capital, I assume around 74 years before the events of The Hunger Games happen (someone correct if wrong please), and thus in retaliation to the revolt, The Capital punishes the Districts by inventing the Hunger Games, a televised 24 manned death match, where each district ‘reaps’ one male and female to fight each other until one is left alive. Death’s going to sue for poor punning.

In fact he's on that train right now, just to see President Snow after the war. That's what you get for using the word "reap" in a different context!


So how have The Capital survived all these years, without taking on another revolution in a short period of time? Joking aside, The Capital, as an outright dictatorship, doesn’t exactly work as a grounded foundation, and probably should have been dismantled sooner then later. Having that great deal of wealth and practically showing it off, using The Hunger Games as a means to keep order, and still remaining in power, is just showing how much reinforcing what everyone would do: fight against you, because you are the supreme controller of everything, and killing teenagers.

I did read an article from the website ‘Cracked’ that does discuss dystopias in young adult fiction, and it does use The Hunger Games as an main example, despite being more comedic, of how some fictional dystopias do use an ‘internal’ fear, The Capital keeping the districts in line, against real dictatorships that use external fear, like North Korea against the Western World. It had some good points in it, about how North Korea uses propaganda to portray labour and sacrifice as best form of defence, against the scourge of the decadent Western world. Their words, not mine. The Capital, perhaps if we’re to take it seriously, fails as a believable threat to society, because it would be unrealistic to be seen as a proper dictatorship, just the fantastical regime of oppression that most likely would not survive easily, even in a post-apocalyptic world.

The second dictatorship I will talk about is The Divergent Series, focusing on its faction-based system. In its setting of dystopian Chicago are five separate factions classifying you as a specific value and traits, where one chooses to join of their own will or following as a result of a placement test: Erudite (intelligence), Amity (peacefulness), Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (truthfulness), and finally Dauntless (bravery), which the main character Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior joins. Not well explained in the film, but she did it because…because! The important thing is Tris is in secret a Divergent, one who is capable of fitting into any faction, but is a threat to the social structure in place, the factions wanting its members to act a certain way and Divergents stray in many directions, and thus can’t be controlled, so the result: death. Certainly reasonable.

While not really seen as a dictatorship to be fair, the set-up for the factions is really just confusing, because it’s pretty much facing a screwed up problem, and to a point replicating it yourself by splitting a city into so many pieces. The faction system doesn’t really work out because it’s a poorly thought through fantasy set-up, to be just one trait for the rest of your life. Again as well, it’s unrealistic because if a post-apocalyptic world were to happen, we wouldn’t divide ourselves into different factions for life, we’d still have a choice in what we want to do, and process many other traits that we have, and work together with many others that have survived the apocalypse. Even as fantasies go, it doesn’t seem so logical.

Yes, dividing ourselves into music groups seems logical. Electronic, Rap, Heavy Metal, Pop, and Jazz. Now let's beat back the Plague everybody!


Lastly, it’s not challenging if you really think about it because as a system, its unnecessary convoluted. To challenge young adults is to really make them think about how the society has changed from its old state, and why these changes were done, instead of showing this is what the world is because…because! Nazi Germany, to make a comparison, came into power back in 1933 not just from promises made to restore employment, and make Germany great again in light of the Great Depression 4 years earlier, but also because the president at the time, Hindenburg, had been pressured into it, despite loathing Adolf Hitler. I hope you have better understanding at that, then in Divergent, and in The Hunger Games.

Summing up as far as my research goes, these dictatorships and that particular kind of world building are ridiculous at best. As dystopias go written and filmed as sci-fi fantasy young adult, they are really poor renditions. If a writer is going to write a dystopian young adult novel, then they should take inspiration from dictatorships, disturbing that may sound, and actually show how they can work, and why they came to power, with more emphasis on how they work to give the viewer a feeling of being scared. That way, it helps have a better understanding of how dictatorships could feel like, and have a better quality work, rather than saying ‘Dictatorships are evil because…because!’. This phrase may be coming back again, or not, I think the points it makes are clear enough.

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2)      Love Triangles

Here we go. Love Triangles. Arguably one of the biggest clichés now in young adult literature and film, love triangles have been part of a marmite effect for a long time, love them or hate them. Puns aside, my own opinions on the matter are annoyed at best, at least concerning one particular triangle at best….the abomination, written by Stephanie Meyer, and The Hunger Games. I’m so picky aren’t I? Again, using these two is my only experience from love triangles in films, so you’ll have to forgive me for not being as broad as perhaps I’d could be.

Let’s start with…the abomination. I have talked about it quite a bit already from so many years ago, and don’t exactly wish to outstay my welcome on it, or it’s welcome to this. We know the characters. Bella Swan falls in love with Edward Cullen for some reason, then he leaves her to protect her after her birthday party goes tits-up, and now her best friend Jacob attempts to fills the gap of boyfriend, but Bella eventually doesn’t go with him and goes back with Edward, Edward and Jacob measure attractiveness and dicks for a while, Bella not admitting that she does have feelings for Jacob until much later on, despite Edward asking her to marry him and she accepts, then they get married and Bella gets pregnant and gives birth to a CGI baby, then is turned into a vampire due to Edward making sure she lives, then they battle evil vampire forces and live happily ever after. Jacob…don’t even get me started. If you couldn’t understand that, best not to because I really don’t want to go into more detail. I’ve suffered enough.

Especially with David Cameron reading it...


Looking back to this, the love triangle is questionable at best. Bella and Edward’s love is still non-existent to me, other than the fact that Edward is a vampire, and Jacob is just as mad as…Bella and Edward. The love triangle for me overall was plain not well done, just plot strands webbed all over the place to create drama when it’s unnecessary, because the characters are just terrible themselves. To give a shorter answer: Bella is an obsessive, Edward is eye candy, and Jacob is a self-serving best friend, or maybe an eye-candy obsessive, either side wouldn’t be surprising. It’s an unimaginative piece of dramatic convenience, poor and entirely serviceable to the plot, and failed on arrival, despite the appeal it had to its audience in that time.

Many say that the abomination is the reason why there are many love triangles in young adult fiction nowadays, and I would say ‘yes’ if it meant because of the millions that the series had made, and publishers wanting to replicate that success. I have yet to see and read authors who say the abomination was a direct influence on their stories, only how few were suggested to do it in order to resemble the abomination to a point, and I understand if it meant going along with what the publishers and agents want, bringing us onto The Hunger Games.

The love triangle here is around Katniss Everdeen and the two male protagonists, Gale Hawthorne: Katniss’s best friend and hunting partner whom she has feelings for, and Peeta Mellark, who is chosen as a tribute beside her and has a crush on Katniss since childhood. Throughout the story, Katniss and Peeta grow closer as they enter the Hunger Games twice, Peeta being captured in the second game, and Katniss taken away by new rebel forces, joining Gale and other people in on the plot to get her out. In the final two films (third book), Katniss sees Peeta has been brainwashed by The Capitol, and once he is got out attempts to kill her, going along with her back despite the risks. As the Capitol citizens attempt a retreat to the President’s mansion, hovercraft come and drop makeshift bombs, developed by Gale, blowing up the citizen’s and their children, Katniss’s sister Primrose and incoming medics among the casualties. Because of this, Katniss and Gale bid a sombre farewell to each other, and she develops a fully-fledged relationship with Peeta, coming to need his strength and caring.

Seeing the love-triangle played out in the films, it seemed pretty good. I understood the points happening throughout from Peeta saying that he loved her before the first games, and that plays to both how they work with each other. Now, Peeta and Katniss seem an interesting if strange match together at the end, because I wonder if they are truly meant for each other come the end of the games. In fact, I had read a theory online about how Peeta, having a crush on Katniss, actually manipulated her for his own. Still kind, but he knows how to get what he wants. I’ll post a link to it at the end. Gale is more rebellious and willing to fight against the Capitol, and Katniss did have feelings for him to start with, being together platonically in the series, until Mockingjay Part ½ as tensions flare up between them, Gale wishing to defeat The Capitol at all costs, Katniss wishing for less casualties and keeping moral sanity, until Gale’s possibly designed bombs kill the Capitol citizens near the end, including Katniss’s sister Primrose. From that point, their relationship is severed forever.

This love triangle is a little stronger then the abomination in many ways, but more convoluted because of the characters conflicting with each other. That could be seen as perhaps a good thing because love triangles are awkward to understand, but I have a feeling that this particular one is convoluted in a bad way, because there are some points that stand out in memory that don’t make sense, like Katniss’s own feelings for him from a sense of need, not from what she wants, and Peeta not really coming to terms with perhaps who Katniss really is. This love triangle is perhaps more about holding onto an idea, and not exactly seeing what we really want. My brain hurts now. There are rumours that Suzanne Collins had been asked to have some focus on the triangle, so it’s a possibility why it doesn’t feel as good as it should be.

This is the reason for their divorce many years later

Summing up, Love Triangles can be bad if not having the proper time to be focused on, to be better quality and feel relatable as opposed to just being dramatic convenience. Meyer’s love triangle is a mash of unlikable characters who just stick together because she wanted it, so that’s dramatic convenience. Collin’s has some strengths to it, but it’s still a little convoluted at places, especially with characters. That’s why if I did love triangles, I would need to take the time so it would really work in respect to the characters who demand it, NOT because it creates tension for the sake of it. Love Triangles then need care to be handled well, if not there’s definitely something missing if people say, ‘this is like Twilight’. By the way, me saying that word doesn’t count because I only guess what people may think. Usually I can be right! 

My namebadge

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3)      Characters as Skins

This is a big question, one that can make you either love a story or hate it. As I mentioned before above, are some characters of young adult fiction developed well, or are they really just ‘skins’ so as readers we can put ourselves in their position? Characters who can be seen as blank slates seem to be a common feature in fiction all round, Luke Skywalker being a perfect example of this trope. For this article, I need three volunteers, and happily I have that amount: Bella Swan (bleugh), Katniss Everdeen, and Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior.
                                                                                                                                               
Bella, to keep it short from my original blog analysing the series, is an obsessive selfish character with little redeeming qualities. So is she a blank slate? I’d say yes, because Bella is just nothing of substance, nothing exactly defines her as a character, from apparent interests or anything, perhaps allowing easily for young teenage girls and women to place themselves into that kind of fantasy. Considering its popularity, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. I think I had read somewhere that Meyer had based it from a dream she had, and that Bella is really just Meyer in appearance. It wouldn’t be surprising either but I think that would be coincidental, for the moment.

She'd be perfect for the Walking Dead


Katniss is a little difficult to pin down. Though she grows throughout the story, do we know so much about her? We know she develops Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from being in her first Hunger Games, a nurturing side when with family, cold to others outside her social circle due to her past, and is a pretty strong female. On the other hand, she could also be considered a blank slate…ish, because she might not be as relatable as we might think, perhaps because she is a plot-driven character, going on from plot-point to plot-point, without really changing so much apart personality wise apart from falling in love with Peeta and the PTSD. Don’t get me wrong, there is some character in there, but maybe not enough to make us appreciate her as a unique individual we can all get behind. Sorry for breaking anyone’s fantasies down like this, but I have to admit, I don’t think she is as strong as we would like to think. Kind of puts my listing The Hunger Games as top films into perspective huh? Jennifer Lawrence I ask for your forgiveness. 



Tris…bugs me. She seems to be around the same point as Katniss, a character who follows plot-point to plot-point with hardly much real personality on-screen. She chooses the Dauntless faction because…because! She falls in love with the character called ‘Four’ because…because! I think I’m starting to see a pattern developing here, and maybe you are too because…because! I don’t know what the character in the book is really like, but here she’s just nothing, again, of substance. Nothing’s changed from when she was meek and selfless, to supposedly being a bad-ass character, when really this journey doesn’t turn her into anything new, just someone who knows how to fight and…because! I’m impressed Shailene Woodley played her well as she did, despite what little there is to Tris at all. Just a case of good actress using up a shitty role so she can do some more stronger stuff, as if she hasn’t already, considering her resume. 

The look on her face when I told her the truth...


Summing up for the last time, these main characters are poor renditions of actual characters, and perhaps more eligible as skins for the reader to use, Katniss being the least poor for some amount of characterisation, Bella being the most considering her role in the abomination, and Tris being closer to Bella then Katniss. If the intended audience of teenage and young adult women use these skins, to enter into a fantasy world that is appealing to them, then it’s not exactly so much engaging with the book, as playing out the fantasy of excitement, and that doesn’t make the books any stronger.


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I think it would be fair to say in conclusion that some Young Adult Fiction isn’t as particularly strong, as perhaps others.

One of the major problems I have considering, is a point that the women who wrote these books, subsequently adapted for films, have produced poor quality work. If these are meant to be aimed at teenage women and young adult women, surely there must be some leeway to have these books actually be unique and relatable to their audience, as opposed to non-existent background stories, lifeless characters, and overbearing plots? All fine and good if fantasy is the way, even in future dystopias, but these works are not really interesting enough.

Even George R.R. Matrin, as an easy comparison I’m sorry, writes more intriguing characters and developed women, creating a dangerous world that almost feels realistic then these female authors could. I’m not trying to attack the authors because they’re women, I’m saying that the authors could develop more understanding of why these women are meant to be badasses, not because they just say they are and leave it at that. I’m sorry if that’s coming off the wrong way, especially with my experiences of films more than the books, but these works are just not as strong as maybe we think they are.

The problem, I wonder, is really how they’re set out. I’m sure that there are good Young Adult Fiction films and books out there, but these three examples, in film terms I can say, are not the best, not by any stretch of imagination. There are few young adult pieces I would want to watch, like The Fault in Our Stars, and The Book Thief. But overall, I’d say there’s only so much you can really do with this particular kind, except to really put some effort into it, and not make it so…insulting. Both genders alike shouldn’t be pampered as they grow up. If that balance can be achieved, think of how awesome that book could look like.

Perfect


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That’s it for this month. Here's a link to the site about Peeta Mellark:

 http://hubpages.com/literature/The-Hunger-Games-A-Romantic-Analysis-of-Peeta-vs-Gale

I must be honest, I have been thinking about stopping The Randomizer as a full blog now, or perhaps at least taking an extended break from it. It’s getting to a point when it’s not easy to come up with different subjects to talk about, and of course my book is coming closer to being near sort of complete. This isn’t a definite thing, but definitely should be coming in the next couple months, and on that bombshell…

Randomizer out.

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