The End of It All!

Well, I wanted to talk about something cheerful this time around, so how about the apocalypse?

I’m constantly fascinated by society’s interest in the End Times and dystopian futures, especially when it comes to literature and media. One would think that folks would be more interested in blissful escapism than delving into the dangerous realms of ‘what-if’ scenarios for when the world ends. However, an argument could be made that viewing such things in fiction IS escapism, as it gives us a safe place to speculate and observe the ultimate ends of concerns that we all might have about the world.

Plus, it’s a great way to see really cool-looking mutants!

Beast is WAY cooler anyways.

Er... Not that kind...

In all honesty, fascination with the end of the world or the fall of society is not new in the slightest. Mankind has long held an interest in the afterlife, dark prophecies of the future, and essentially with death and decay. It comes from that natural question a healthy inquisitive mind has: “What’s next?”

What DOES seem to be a little new to me is the number of works featuring anthropomorphic characters in these settings. I’ve seen a couple of books and games that depict a ruined Earth where humankind has almost entirely died out and, in their place, other animals became the dominant species, developing culture, language, technology, and so forth. It’s an interesting idea because it almost presents anthropomorphic animals as a logical and sensible thing. Some species has to fill the gap that man has left behind, right?

I do find it kind of amusing that, oftentimes, these newly dominant species end up becoming extremely human in appearance and mannerisms as well. One might think that’s a commentary on how sentient beings and society tend to operate in an immutable pattern, but I’m sure it’s also done because of the ease of relatability for readers, and because it’s simply a fun idea for the writers.

But, going back to what I said earlier, these settings are also fun because they allow the writer to play with mutants, or hybrids, as some might see them. In terms of anthropomorphic animals, the sky is nearly the limit here, with winged cats and talking, blood-red dogs being the more tame varieties. I’ve seen four-foot tall anthropomorphic mice with antennae for ears, king-sized slugs with crowns to match, and cheetah with the legs of a grasshopper. These mutations allow for all sorts of new ideas for how characters can move and perceive the world, and they can be extremely exciting for that reason alone. I think the most fun this line of writing gets is when it just fully embraces its weirdness.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this I’ve seen in writing is a Dungeons and Dragons novel called ‘Red Sails in the Fallout’. It is part of a series of novels written about the DnD setting known as Gamma World, and few things get stranger than that. For those of you who do not know, the Gamma World setting is a game type that is characterized primarily by its randomness and anything-goes mentality. It’s essentially a setting where the world has gone to pot and mutations are everywhere, both in the monsters and the player characters and even the world itself. As an example of how silly and awesome the game can get, a friend of mine once played a session where they were assigned and acquired random mutations as the game went on. By the end of the game, he was a swarm of sentient bees that all operated with one consciousness and had telepathic powers along with shooting laser beams out of his many eyes.

I’m told he was one of the more normal cases in his game.

The book is a fine read even for those who have never played a single game of Dungeons and Dragons. I won’t do a proper Book Talk on this one as I did not read it critically and it’s been a long time since I picked it up, but it has some of the marks of what I described above, where the main anthropomorphic characters travel across a radiation drenched world, fending off mutated creatures and the land itself and dealing with the understandably crazy inhabitants and their own mutations as they come. It has a very tongue-in-cheek flavor to its writing as it knows full well how weird the setting is, and is definitely written for the purposes of entertainment over science.

So, yeah, when it comes to the apocalypse and those terrifying dystopian futures, I think they’re all well and good to explore and give us some great insights into human culture. However, I also love how they’re great starting points for looking at how the world could be different if given half a chance and a nuclear fallout or two.

Though I do wonder which animals really would rise to dominance after the humans have gone… I want to say it would be raccoons, with our dexterous hands and intelligence, but the end of human society means we would lose one of our primary food sources!

I see you there, Mr. Artist!
Don't you dare give me six arms or nine tails...
I'm already mutant enough, being blue.

Speaking of food, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it. I am extremely thankful for a great many things, including the folks who've read my words here and shared their opinion and thoughts with me as a result.

Until next time, happy reading all!

Currently Reading:

The Last Wild by Piers Torday