Nothing gets me going like the apocalypse. The gritty struggle for survival, nomadic raiders riding around on motorcycles and ATVs, the way humanity turns against itself in a sort of societal autoimmune disorder… “After the bomb” (or any kind of devastation, really) is truly my favorite setting in fiction.
The apocalypse is usually portrayed as a sort of human twilight – the fading afterglow of an existence that burned too bright for too long. But it is also a global reset button. If everything is destroyed, the characters are forced to survive on their own resourcefulness, their own ingenuity. I love reading about clever ways (scientifically sound or otherwise) that characters are able to survive and even flourish in such a harsh environment. From the supremely hostile world of the zombie apocalypse to the highly creative (and equally terrifying) pandemic in “Blindness” to the classic nuclear holocaust – any of these devastating scenarios can provide an extraordinary circumstance in which we can truly examine the core of a character’s being.
Imagine yourself, huddled in a corner of an apartment on the 13th floor of a high-rise. You haven’t eaten in days, of course, because the cupboards had been raided by the time you arrived. It is dusk, the world dark outside, save for the occasional flash of lightning. And besides the rain and thunder that accompanies the lightning, the only sound you hear is a low chorus of moaning. 12 stories below you, for a reason you cannot even begin to understand, the dead have begun to once more walk the earth. Adding to this hellish scenario, these re-animated corpses hunger for your flesh.
What would you do? Would you stand and fight, trying to find other survivors to reclaim your world? Or would you become a scavenger, trying always to stay ahead of the hordes below?
Talk about drama! I got chills even writing that, and it’s a cliche!
Humanity has always had apocalypse stories. Ragnarok of Norse mythology, Armageddon of the Bible, the Five Suns of the Aztecs. There is even a term for study of the end of the world – Eschatology. We as humans have always been fascinated with the idea of the world’s end. We have always created theories, religious or otherwise, as to how the light of humanity will suddenly go out. This morbid fascination has been translated into the various fictions that we as humans have created – the Fallout series of games, Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, Stephen King’s The Stand. They are all explorations of the collective fear and fascination our species has with “the End.”
Of course, the apocalypse can be poorly done. The Day After Tomorrow? Beyond Thunderdome? Doomsday? (Oh GOD, Doomsday!) – all of these movies were awful. And yet I still respect the imagination that goes into them. They still press that core button in me – the one that forces me to consider: “Would I survive, if the world became this way? What’s important to me? Where would I go? Could I make these choices?” And when the Apocalypse is done well? It absolutely enthralls me. The Book of Eli is probably one of the most amazing post-apocalyptic movies I’ve ever seen. My jaw was dropped for nearly all of 28 Days Later. I even liked Waterworld for its imaginative setting.
These stories are the opposite of “escapist” literature – you are drawn into a world that is worse, not better, than your own. You are forced to think about your own survival as you see or read or hear about the hard choices the characters make. And yet, at the end of it all, there’s often a sense of hope. Of appreciation for the world in which we live. Is this the reason for our perverse interest in these scenarios? Do we need to be reminded of the relative safety and comfort of our lives?
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get my crowbar.
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