Totalitarian Caste Systems in Dystopian Fantasy
A Guest Blog Post by: A.Z.K.R., author of Tales of Porcelain Thrones: Middle School Edition
Totalitarianism is a system of government that is headed by an absolute dictator who supports themselves with some kind of violent force. In a totalitarian country there is no freedom of the people. One example of totalitarianism can be found in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn. The Final Empire is headed by the Lord Ruler, who uses emotional manipulation against the populous. They are required to believe only what the Steel Ministry tells them and treat the Lord Ruler as god. The Final Empire is also a caste system. A caste system is a system of government in which people are divided into sections based on race and or job description. The Final Empire is not an exact Caste System sine the Garrison and a few merchants come from the Skaa population.
A better example of a Totalitarian Caste System is Suzanne Collins’s series Hunger Games. In Hunger Games President Snow represents the the absolute ruler and the Hunger Games themselves serve as the violent force. The caste system in Panam is much stricter than the one in the Final Empire. The people are confined to geographically separated districts that are each in charge of one resource that is distributed across the whole country, such as coal lumber, and technology. District Thirteen is the rebel district, their Mistborn counterparts would be the thieving crews. In both dystopian societies the government mostly ignored the rebels, avoiding conflict and keeping the peace. Up until the nineteen forties India was a real life example of a totalitarian caste system. The noblemen and Garrison plus the District two and the capital are equal to the Kshatriyas. Likewise the Chandles are similar to the thieving crews or district thirteen.
Totalitarian caste systems are terrible for everyone except the people on top. Even now as a democracy India is a miserable place still scarred by its past government. On the flip side, the opposite of a totalitarian caste system would be a world with no ruler or government system at all. You may note that in the United States religious freedom only goes as far as it can without infringing on other peoples’ rights. Or it was supposed to anyway. Both extremes are bad. People need guidance, not total dominance. Rules, not oppression.
Anakalian Whims 