History WMG / NineteenEightyFour

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[[WMG: Airstrip One is [[Wiki/SCPFoundation UnLondon]] ]]

** Hence why the Party cracked down on them, it wasn't because they were having sex for pleasure (seriously, how can sex for pleasure be a threat to the power hunger of the Party? It's like saying playing with an old, harmless toy is a threat to your mom, or Wiki/TVTropes is a threat to Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}), it was because of the outright {{Squick}} that even the Party and Big Brother himself can't handle...

[[WMG:Syme didn't get executed -- he was promoted to the Inner Party.]]

Syme was smart, and through his work on the new edition of the Newspeak dictionary he obtained an understanding of how society really works. But while most people who do so turn into rebels, he was supporting it. The Inner Party saw his potential and decided to make him one of them.

It is important for the Inner Party to avoid any information leaking to the members of the Outer Party. For that reason any new IP members must sever all ties to their former OP acquaintances. The most effective way to do that is to give former OP members new identities and erase their old identities from existence by declaring them unperson.

* This one's actually highly plausible. Indeed, such actions would be the only way to maintain the divide between the Inner and Outer Parties.
** Really, this would seem to make the most sense. The key distinguishing trait that the Party looks for in Inner Party as opposed to Outer Party members is loyalty. Syme recognizes what the Party is doing ''and sincerely loves them for it''. No need for Doublethink, no need for torture or intimidation, no need even for a reward. He just wants to be part of the terrifying process of building an empire of oppression that will never end, and that's a reward enough in itself. While Winston's loyal at the end, he's also been tortured to the point of uselessness. When the Party sees that sort of loyalty occurring naturally, that's very useful.

[[WMG:The Party was once allied with Eastasia.]]

[[WMG:The Party was never allied with Eastasia. The Party has always been allied with Eurasia.]]

[[WMG:The Party is allied with Eastasia. The Party is at war with Eurasia. The Party has always been at war with Eurasia.]]

[[WMG:All three of the above statements can be regarded as true FromACertainPointOfView.]]

This also relies upon a certain amount of {{Doublethink}} and the assumption that the three powers are in fact collaborating to maintain a world order. To wit:
* Oceania, by nature of its collaboration with both Eastasia and Eurasia, is allied to Eastasia and Eurasia respectively.
* However, all three sides are ''technically'' at war, and are thus ''technically'' not allied.
* Thus, the Party can pretend to switch allegiances and enemies without completely being wrong as such, as Oceania has both always been allied to, not allied to, and at war with both Eurasia and Eastasia. It just depends on which version of the truth it wants to present.

[[WMG:Winston became a severe alcoholic in the end.]]

* It's not a WMG if it's in the narrative.

[[WMG:Winston died of severe alcoholism in the end.]]

The "He Loved Big Brother" part was a just a delusion and a dying dream, with him actually dying due to an [[spoiler:upset liver]], which he ignored due to doublethink.

[[WMG:Winston Smith is in Hell.]]

Think about it, a CrapsackWorld where MindRape is an accepted punishment and an omnipresent entity watches your every move... Hell, it is even worse than the popularly considered [[Literature/TheDivineComedy He]][[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion ll]]...

[[WMG:Winston Smith is in Heaven.]]

AHellOfATime. 'Nuff said.

[[WMG:O'Brien was once Goldstein.]]

He eventually defected, and now use the Brotherhood to entrap dissents.


[[WMG:Julia is Winston's [[BrotherSisterIncest sister]].]]

* Winston isn't sure of his exact age, right? And they both have dark hair...
** Hence why the Party cracked down on them, it wasn't because they were having sex for pleasure (seriously, how can sex for pleasure be a threat to the power hunger of the Party? It's like saying playing with an old, harmless toy is a threat to your mom, or Wiki/TVTropes is a threat to Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}), it was because of the outright {{Squick}} that even the Party and Big Brother himself can't handle...
*** Winston's hair is "very fair."
*** Sex leads to attachments, which lead to people's loyalties being outside party needs. That is why they hate it. Almost every totalitarian system in history has despised sex, from Phillip and Isabella to Stalin.

[[WMG:Oceania would eventually evolve into [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Orks]].]]

Remember when O'Brien convinces Winston that the Party can control everything? What if the Party said that Red goes fasta? Yes. The Party will eventually technologically evolve the WAAGH field, remove sexuality completely (via asexual reproduction), and make its society feed literally on the permanent war. In addition, some Newspeak words do have two opposite meanings. I am pretty sure that the Ork word for "the best friend" is the same as "the favourite enemy."

[[WMG: Airstrip One is [[Wiki/SCPFoundation UnLondon]] ]]

[[WMG:Oceania is bombing itself, and the proles know about it.]]

The idea is thus: It has been postulated before that Oceania has never been at war with Eastasia or Eurasia (or, possibly, neither nation exists) and simply acts as though it is at war in order to stay in control; therefore the idea that Oceania is bombing itself comes forth. In one instance, Winston mentions how the proles have an uncanny ability to know ahead of time when the rocket bombs will hit. The proles must know ahead of time because they're in on the secret!
* Julia had theorized this in the book. Supported by increase in bombings leading up to hate week, and all bombings happening to the proles.
* The proles don't know where the bombs will hit; all Smith observes is that they know when to take cover, and they do that when the noise of the bomb's rocket motor cuts out. Unlike much in ''1984'', this is drawn directly from life, specifically from the London Blitz.

[[WMG:1984 and Film/BackToTheFuture take place in the same universe, but in alternate timelines.]]

Big Brother is George [=McFly=], except he never found love.
* Wasn't that an episode of WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents?

[[WMG:Because everyone must use doublethink, even its rulers are enslaved by Oceania.]]

[[WMG:1984 is actually an alternate history imagined in a world where the Axis won [=WW2=].]]

The 3 main evil superpowers are the victorious allies USA-UK, USSR, China, which absorb Germany and Japan. With the Axis vanquished the evil Allies divide up the world. This also explains the role assigned to Goldstein.
* So you say it's an Alternate History novel written from the perspective of an Alternate History?

[[WMG:1984 is actually over the top Eurasian propaganda about Oceania.]]
* No, not possible. We have always been at war with Eastasia and have always been allied with Eurasia.

[[WMG:Oceania is at war with Eastasia.]]

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

[[WMG:Oceania is allies with both Eurasia and Eastasia.]]

In fact, it hasn't been at war with either of them for several years. The Party deludes the people into believing that they are the enemies in order to scare them into loyalty. The rockets that land daily are fired by Oceania itself, and the soldiers that are hung publicly are actually citizens of Oceania that have committed crimes.

[[folder:The future of the Party/Oceania]]

[[folder:Ministry of Love & Room 101]]

[[folder:The Party, Big Brother, & Society]]

[[folder:Real-World History]]

[[folder:The true state of the world]]

[[folder:Other/Unsorted]]

[[WMG:In the world of 1984, humanity suffers from a widespread pandemic of the StockholmSyndrome.]]

Arguably true, but also unhelpful, because "Stockholm syndrome", like any syndrome, is basically just a collection of signs and symptoms that correlate strongly with a given circumstance, which in this case is a kidnapping or hostage situation. Calling it "Stockholm syndrome" therefore only produces an argument (over whether Oceania counts as a hostage situation) without really telling us anything we don't already know.

[[WMG:1984 is a description of [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Rei Ayanami's]] mind, with only the flow of time reversed.]]

ExtremeDoormat, no value for herself or her life indicating a self-esteem so low that [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Azathoth]] himself could not sink more... The Party has always wanted everyone to be like that. Not only has she been a virtual slave to the bone to Gendo (Big Brother), but also she casually sacrifices herself for Shinji, submitting to the Party of Death/Bodily and Mental Harm as well (see 1984 as Death theory above). [[CharacterDevelopment In the End of Evangelion, however]]...

[[WMG:The appendix implies that the Party will fall.]]

It's already been pointed out on this page, but let's make it official. The appendix is about Newspeak, in normal English, in the past tense; and it's implied to have been written sometime before 2050. Oh, and there's no other good reason to include it from the author's point of view, since we knew almost everything in it from reading the book; Orwell wasn't a big language guy like Creator/JRRTolkien.
* It's also supported in the main text, if you think about it -- for all the Party's warped logic and overconfidence, there's almost no way that the kind of continually degrading society like Oceania, where the only point of ''anything'' seemed to be to keep the system that was gradually making everything worse in place, would in any way be able to sustain itself for long before imploding.
* [[WordOfGod Orwell]] specifically said that the appendix shouldn't be taken as part of the story. Whether you think The Party will ''eventually'' fall is up to you to decide. It might not fall; it is the most stable political system imaginable.
** It would fall pretty quickly; the Party is only that stable because [[NoDelaysForTheWicked it's in a book]]. Once it's not in a book anymore, it's one of the least stable governments imaginable. Do you know of any government on Earth that kept up the shortages the Party does lasting much more than it already has? Or a government that only has one well-educated prole standing between it and a revolution?
*** The Palestine Liberation Organization and the associated Islamic Resistance Movement. They've been at it for 43 years by a conservative count.
*** North Korea. If you look for an isolated, starving, militarized nation characterized by ''extreme'' poverty and a very wealthy upper class, you have no other contender. Comparatively, UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} is paradise. Even worse, its Dictators are worshipped like gods for any positive event. If you look carefully, you'll find they have both thoughtcrime, and a populace trained for terrorism.
*** North Korea is only kept going by charity programs, drug dealing, and all kinds of other parasitic reliance on the developed world, and hasn't been invaded only because they have a ''lot'' of heavy artillery pointed at South Korea. And even then, nobody's sure if it'll survive the death of Kim Jong-il.
*** They have so far.
*** And not to mention the fact that freeing the North and reunification would effectively ''destroy'' South Korea's economy.
*** Holocaust, I'm pretty sure.
*** We only see Oceania as poor from the perspective of Winston. Just because he's poor as dirt, doesn't mean the nation and the Party are. For all we know, Oceania as a whole is thriving, with the wealth merely concentrated on the Inner Party (or whoever you think is running the show). If that is the case, then they can, in fact, keep up their just-for-fun torture gimmick forever, as long as the social structure remains as solid as they predict.
* Winston may have written the index after the Party fell, before they had the chance to execute him.
** But they did execute Winston. It says right at the end they shot him.
*** No; that scenario is Winston's hallucination, the natural consequence of what is happening at the time (that is, his final, unconditional love of Big Brother). Although that doesn't make it likely that he ever snapped out of it...
* It wouldn't even need a half-decent rebellion to collapse the society -- they're reducing people's intellect and self-reliance until the vast majority will be unable to take care of themselves, and the people in charge won't be able to live forever (as far as I know). Eventually, the remaining infrastructure will completely collapse because nobody knows how to maintain it. Heck, if the Party's plans go through they might forget how to breed. And if there's an ''actual'' war every going on, invaders could pretty much walk into the place.
** This would sound like it would lead into the ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' universe, except for the lack of what technology still works by 2505.
* Except that the ''entire book'' is also written in past tense, and in modern English.

[[folder:The Party]]

[[WMG:The Outer Party '''IS NOT''' the equivalent of the middle-class.]]

The "middle class" referred here is more of a generalized term for a "class somewhere between the elite and the proletariat" rather than referring to the modern definition, which is the Capitalists. The Outer Party corresponds more to the bureaucrats, lower government officials and lesser Party members, where the BigBrotherIsWatching tactics would be more practical so that the bureaucracy at large can always be kept well-oiled and in order. The Middle Class is more likely to be a part of the Proles, with the Proles thriving on hedonism and being able to retain the free market, or have been exterminated during the Revolution. If the socialist BigBrotherIsWatching with NoSexAllowed regime was applied to all the Middle Class and the Capitalist Bourgeoisie, the numerous {{Mega Corp}}orations would not be amused and would have revolted before Oceania was even established as a superpower, allowing either the complete extermination of the "Middle Class" or the prominence of a ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' / ''Literature/JenniferGovernment'' (or at the very least ''Literature/{{Fahrenheit 451}}'', or just pick any CyberPunk setting) society to take place instead since we all know capitalism thrives on excess, incentives and Dionysian hedonism (quite the exact opposite of English Socialism), and do you think the corporations and businessmen want to lose all that? It could be argued that the corporations fused together with the Inner Party, but that does not explain all the No Sex Allowed repression, and if Ingsoc is really corporate then they should care more for profit than "thoughtcrime" and pointless, worthless, ''profitless'' B.B.-worship.
* Hardly a WMG. If there's one economic philosophy which can definitively be said to exist nowhere in the official world of Ingsoc, capitalism would have to be it; the closest we see anything come to it is the "black market" Julia patronizes, and odds are it's no more real than the "Brotherhood".
* Maybe it's possible that the Mega Corporations have become the Inner Party...
** But NoSexAllowed, no materialism allowed, and Ingsoc oppresses even the higher-ups. Oceania seems to be more minimalist compared to a consumerist society. How would a Corrupt Corporate Executive like that?
** It's probably safe to say that Ingsoc isn't actually supposed to be purely socialist given Orwell's own well-documented socialist views. It's far more likely that Ingsoc is supposed to represent a regime more in line with [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] or [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] -- nothing to do with socialism but still claimed some kind of connection to it to put up a good front. Still, to get back on track, there has to be some kind of topmost level to the regime. It's possible that the Corrupt Corporate Executives in question occupy that level.

[[WMG:Alternatively, the Party is a de facto MegaCorp hiding under socialism.]]

Proles are basically the consumers who keep buying crap media produced by the Party while ignorantly slaving away for them while on minimum wage in factories with NoOSHACompliance, while we all know that the Party itself is a massive Military-Industrial Complex that only cares for WarForFunAndProfit. And all the profits are wastefully accumulated by the CorruptCorporateExecutive[=s=] (Inner Party) who break their own rules (can you really trust an [[ConsummateLiar Inner Party member]] saying he isn't a decadent hedonistic sex criminal?) while having [[BadBoss occasional hobby of torturing their poorly-paid employees (Outer Party members)]] [[ForTheEvulz for the lulz]].

* It's a distinction without a difference. To the extent of our ability to determine from the narrative, within its sphere the Inner Party wields absolute power over every aspect of every subject's life. It is therefore by definition totalitarian; what you call it beyond that, if anything, reveals nothing more than your own least favorite philosophy of government.

[[WMG:''Literature/JenniferGovernment'' takes place after ''1984''.]]

After Airstrip One collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, people rejected the totalitarian socialism of The Party and over-corrected by switching to rampant capitalism.

[[WMG:Orwell didn't understand environmentalism.]]

The Party hopes to rule forever. What Orwell didn't realise was that the Party's environmentally-unfriendly policies will eventually destroy the planet's ecology. Their subjects will finally be free (albeit dead).
* Maybe good ol' overpopulation among the proles and the resulting food shortage will cause a huge economic collapse and/or food riots...
** Hasn't worked for North Korea yet.
* It's more probable that oil runs out first, and then the whole system will break together. Eastasia might be the first state to fall.
** Well, ''eventually'' the sun will implode, and ''that'' would break Party rule. Besides, the Party would no doubt eventually realise their environmental woes and do something ''drastic'' about it -- like immediate full-scale adoption of solar power. Remember, they're prepared to do pretty much anything if their precious power is threatened, and so they would probably weather the oil hump better (or at least in a more organised manner) that we will in RealLife.
*** They'll probably switch to nuclear power rather then solar, since that technology exists. Sure there may be a couple meltdowns, but as far as they're concerned that's not a serious problem (and they can always be blamed on traitors and spies).
*** There aren't many incentives for people to become good scientists in the 1984 world. The Soviet Union didn't develop solar or wind power on a great scale either.
*** It's not because of lack of good scientists, but because of the Soviet Union's large deposits of mineral fuel. Faced with an oil shortage, it wouldn't be a problem to develop an alternative energy source in the 1984 world.
*** The problem with the Party noticing about the environment is that they just won't care. Sure, the sun will implode, oil will run out, but never, and I mean never, expect The Party to be pro-nature. Remember, their science is devoted to war, Big Brother worship and general nihilism, not restoration and cooperating with mother nature. You need resources for constant war, and environmentalism would just be a big hindrance to that. They, being massive torture-obsessive dicks and all, will just ignore it via doublethink, and think the Carbon Dioxide they generate and breathe is Oxygen while everyone else suffocates. The Party is an Film/{{Idiocracy}} that essentially thrives on its own arrogance by deluding themselves as Reality Warpers whose only care is power and Big Brother, and understanding the environment would cause love of nature, which will of course turn devotion away from war / power / Big Brother, weaken Party rule and put them closer to proles and thoughtcrime, and that is '''''bad'''''. For example, like sex, which is natural but also turns devotion away and thus becomes heresy. For now, allow their hubris to kill them: This Troper imagines a [[{{Anvilicious}} delicious]] scene where AfterTheEnd a few hardy Proles that are closer to earth are all that remain, with the Party and civilization having killed themselves via Global Warming and GaiasVengeance. Yes, yes, I CallItKarma.
* Good Lord. There's a lot more ruin in a planet than in any government known to man.

[[WMG:The Party WILL fall. Via Aliens.]]

Now, it's quite a stretch, but this is how I think it'll all go down:
* The Party want to rule forever.
* If Eastasia or Eurasia win and beat back the surviving state, things won't change much and there'll never be another state.
* Eventually, assuming humanity doesn't nuke itself into oblivion, aliens will show up. Why? Well, the Party, whichever state it's from, is apparently unstoppable, i.e. there will never be a successful rebellion. This also means that, with the war apparently being perpetual, someone WILL lose eventually, assuming it's not just Oceania screwing with everyone. In that case, there is already only one party. Anyway, with no threat, life will go on as it always has... Until something from far away in the galaxy shows up, albeit in a very advanced stage of the Party's collective life. What happens then is up to debate. Aliens might conquer, since the Party, as a whole, would never progress (science is obliterated) and would be kind of military pushovers who keep lying and doublethinking to themselves. They might help the common man for whatever reason. Who knows? But if the Party keeps stamping on a face "forever," they'd better be prepared for the odds of something like this happening.
** Or maybe this will be the successful rebellion.
* The aliens and rebels work together.
* The party loses the war.
* The Party is [[LaserGuidedKarma forced into Room 101]] until they die.

[[WMG:1984 takes place in the present, the inner party is the Illuminati, and the conspiracy theorists are the only ones who know the truth.]]
* Alternatively, Ingsoc used its control over knowledge to write itself out of history and rewrite history to remove themselves from it. The Party now lurks in the shadows. The Party has always lurked in the shadows.
** Reality bears no resemblance to the setting of 1984 at all. For one, the world still has far more than just three countries, people are allowed to have sex, and you have to do a '''''HECK''''' of a lot more than just say "screw the government" to get branded an insurrectionist, as evidenced by the fact that Alex Jones, who actually is an insurrectionist, is still free to scream his head off after all these years.

[[WMG:George Orwell was visited by Time Travelers and taken to either our present or a few years into the future.]]
Think about it, he predicted not only flat-screen televisions (The Telescreen), Textspeak (Newspeak) and [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou government surveillance]] (Take a guess...), but also the wars in the Middle East and totalitarian states controlling the minds of the masses (ala UsefulNotes/NorthKorea). OK, so the real 1984 was a tad normal, but what if a Time Traveller (such as [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]]) picks him up, brings him here but only long enough to give him PlausibleDeniability, meaning that while seeing all these things and learning the modern politics, he doesn't exactly get it all in context and upon returning it gets a tad mixed up in his head, leading him to write a story about a totalitarian state in [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} England]] (after all, in the 1940's, the government watching the population with cameras would have been a terrifyingly new concept).

* This is "Star Trek invented cell phones", except your lit crit professor won't throw you out of the classroom for it.

* Note that in the novel Winston Smith specifically states that he's guessing about the year. It could well be 2017. In fact, 2017 is shaping up nicely to look like Oceania except perhaps with less pleasant leadership.

[[WMG:1984 is a [[CosmicHorrorStory Lovecraftian Fiction]]-like metaphor of our mortality and misery of life.]]

So many evils shatter our dignity. [[DeathIsASadThing As we all know, when we die, our brains are shut down, robbing us of feelings, thoughts, and even our humanity.]] The Party is a metaphor of mortality/entropy/evil. The proles (ordinary people) are left to slowly rot as they are barely maintained by the illusion of safety until their souls are ready to be harvested, but those defiant enough to rebel against human misery (revolutionaries, dreamer of utopians...) are sorted out by the Brotherhood (things ostensibly working for a better world) and brainwashed in the Ministry of Love. Poor Winston, even he loves Big Brother, he is being driven closer to mental collapse, as his unconscious is still screaming for freedom, and the Party will shatter what has been left of Winston's EmptyShell with a bullet.

When all other evils don't break us, death will surely do, digesting our very being, leaving some sort of excrement full of filth, pathogens, and [[AndIMustScream screaming void of madness]] [[MindScrew beyond logic and language]]. The readers may ask, how does someone suffer when they are already dead and mindless? I don't know how, I don't understand what it is, but it's how things work in the horrors of 1984, where logic, objectivity, and hope are all lies. [[GoMadFromTheRevelation My brain already hurts from trying to comprehend the abomination that is human misery and death...]] Oh, death is commonly thought to be the final rest, like Big Brother being hailed as an almighty, trusty leader and [[FauxAffablyEvil O'Brien being damn good at pretending to be nice.]] Another clue comes from TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}, where Nurgle, the Chaos god of diseases and death, is called Grandfather and is described as [[FauxAffablyEvil acting disturbingly nice]].
* 1984 isn't just a metaphor of how people are [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror conditioned to accept their mortality and misery]], it's literally Nurgle taking over a planet and ruling it with an iron hand clad with poisoned velvet globes!
* If we're going into 40K comparisons, you can pretty much say with utmost confidence that the Imperium is the Party made even more cruel, considerably more violent and mixed with the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and UsefulNotes/NaziGermany; but, horrifyingly, made well-intentioned and even necessary for the preservation of the human race.

[[WMG:1984 is a description of [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Rei Ayanami's]] mind, with only the flow of time reversed.]]

ExtremeDoormat, no value for herself or her life indicating a self-esteem so low that [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Azathoth]] himself could not sink more... The Party has always wanted everyone to be like that. Not only has she been a virtual slave to the bone to Gendo (Big Brother), but also she casually sacrifices herself for Shinji, submitting to the Party of Death/Bodily and Mental Harm as well (see 1984 as Death theory above). [[CharacterDevelopment In the End of Evangelion, however]]...

[[WMG:Oceania isn't the world empire it is presented as, in fact it isn't even a superpower, it is a poor totalitarian state that convinced the population that it was a superpower with propaganda.]]

Aka: North Korea.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dprk_pyongyang_hotel_rugen_05_s.jpg "...An enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air."]]
* Also, like North Korea, the reason Oceania is not simply annexed by its neighboring democratic powers is that they just don't know how to deal with the logistical nightmare of feeding millions of starving former subjects of a collapsed totalitarian state.
** North Korea is already so deeply reliant on foreign aid that it's no stretch to say the free nations of the world are ''already'' feeding millions of half-starving ''current'' subjects of a gradually disintegrating totalitarian state, because the best (or least worst) alternative for dealing with the whole mess is just to let it collapse on its own and welcome the survivors back into civilization when they're ready to come on their own. Invading North Korea would make the US occupation of Iraq look like a cakewalk, and withdrawing aid would probably provoke a desperate invasion of South Korea which, while of course doomed from the outset, would be expensive to beat back and likely a severe disruption to the West's technological supply chain.
* Several fanfics have been written on the premise that everything the Party tells its subjects about Oceania being a world-spanning superpower is a lie, and that Oceania is in fact confined to "Airstrip One", i.e., Great Britain. See this story on alternatehistory.com, at http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/lets-all-go-down-the-strand-images-of-1984-reboot.315722/, for an example.
* In Orwell's day, the idea of a country like this without an empire probably seemed as backwards as North Korea having one does nowadays, and that's understandable. These countries, by their nature, are highly industrialized, militaristic, and expansionist. And before the fall of the Soviet Union and America's spiritual conquering of the world, which took place decades later, there was little to stop these countries from simply taking over whichever country is closest and weakest, and then working they way up to an empire.
[[WMG:Room 101, and to an extension the entire fear-powered system of Oceania, in fact [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement just relies]] on the "fear drug" from ''Film/BatmanBegins''.]]

If the Ministry is going to physically tailor the regime to each and every one's worst fears every day even though those fears are totally absurd (fear of the eldritch, for example) the system would implode because DystopiaIsHard. A fear drug would be more efficient, and would fit in with how Oceania feeds and thrives on the fear of its inhabitants.

* Worst fears live in Room 101, not in everyday life, because it's not needed there. Nobody's worst fear is of "the eldritch", whatever the hell that means. As worst fears go, complex and subtle Lovecraftian horror doesn't hold a candle to a chair with straps and a lit blowtorch, and Oceanian society doesn't offer any scope for "complex and subtle" in any case; an Oceanian subject's worst fear is going to be immediate, visceral, and brutally simple, because the entire range of his lifelong experience is likewise. And even leaving that aside -- strapped to a chair and given a choice between ''The Call of Cthulhu'' and a lit blowtorch, which would ''you'' pick? The motif of harmful sensation is such a big trope in horror fiction precisely because it ''doesn't actually exist''. The lit blowtorch doesn't turn up much there, precisely because it ''does''. That's the difference between fun scary and real scary.

** Reality bears no resemblance to the setting of 1984 at all. For one, the world still has far more than just three countries, people are allowed to have sex, and you have to do a '''''HECK''''' of a lot more than just say "screw the government" to get branded an insurrectionist, as evidenced by the fact that Alex Jones is still free to scream his head off after all these years.

However, instead of either a single lake of fire or several bloody bowels of Hell Creator/{{Dante}} told us about, this Hell is divided into two sections, based on either ChaoticEvil or LawfulEvil. Lecherous hedonists, those guilty of crimes of passion, and the ChaoticEvil end up as the animal-like Proles. The LawfulEvil such as dictators and [[KnightTemplar knight templars]] end up in the Party, mirroring how they used the law to justify their evil (that means, the majority of Fundamentalists end up in the Party). There can still be hope and escape, though, but it's in the Ministry of Love, which is actually Purgatory.

With their nations utterly ruined by war, nuclear fallout, and a nuclear winter millions of Europeans would flee to colonies across the world. French people would move to Algeria, British people would move to Rhodesia or South Africa, Dutch people would move to Suriname, and other Europeans would flee to any nation that would take them.

It is known that America came close to using nukes in the Korean war. Perhaps in this timeline, nukes were used, resulting in a massive global conflict that destroys much of China, Russia, and Europe. Effectively, nobody wins the war an all sides agree to a stalemate.

With their nations utterly ruined by war, millions of Europeans would flee to colonies across the world. French people would move to Algeria, British people would move to Rhodesia or South Africa, Dutch people would move to Siam.

** Or not. See ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' for 1984 [[RecycledINSPACE in space]].

* Also, TVTropesWillRuinYourLife is Room 101.

[[WMG:George Orwell was visited by Time Travelers and taken to either our present or a few years into the future.]

* We have always weared masks, we have always social distanced.

[[WMG:George Orwell was visited by Time Travelers and taken to either our present or a few years into the future.]]

[[WMG:1984 either takes place before or ''after'' the events of Film/TheMatrix.]]

[[WMG: Oceania makes up ¾ of the world's surface.]]