Heard a rumor that the end is near, but I just got comfortable here.
Newsboys, "Lost the Plot"
We all know that in a
Scavenger World you have to be meaner than a hyena to survive. Think of all those
Mad Max-type stories, where only really
Badass and otherwise well 'ard individuals, usually with bizarre neo-punk hairstyles can hack it in the new world. To quote the blurb on the back of a novel whose title this editor has forgotten (anyone else know?) "When civilization did an ugly vanishing act called World War Three, those most used to its absence were the best suited to survival, and the Hells Angels (Los Angeles Chapter) were survivors from way back."
Or maybe not. That's where we come to the Cosy Catastrophe.
"Cosy Catastrophe" is a term coined by Brian Aldiss to describe the work of fellow British
Sci Fi icon John Wyndham. Wikipedia lists it as a style of science fiction coming from England in the mid-twentieth century, but this may not be an entirely accurate description.
The trope is that
The End of the World As We Know It has arrived and the survivors, who become our
heroes, are safe, middle-class, (usually) white people. This is often seen as twee, sentimental, and silly, as we all know that only badasses are survivors.
However, before knocking the Cosy Catastrophe, consider the following.
1. There are far more ordinary, law-abiding folk than gangsters in the world now, and that would probably still be true
After the End, at least initially.
2. Gangsters are as reliant on the infrastructure of the world as anyone else. They can't make new bullets (for example) out of air and in real life an Uzi soon runs out. Neither can they make petroleum, without which bikers are just bearded, leather-clad pedestrians.
3. A big disaster, especially a war, would first wipe out the big cities, where most of the gangs are. Many of the survivors would be small-town types, who often are law-abiding and middle class.
4. The majority of the readers of science fiction are middle class, law abiding, often white and quite often nerdy. Making that kind of person the protagonist makes it more real, it tells the reader "This could happen to
you, not just some hardcase who'd cope easily and probably enjoy it!"
In a well-written Cosy Catastrophe, the middle-class people don't stay as they were, it's an opportunity for
Character Development as the previously 'nice' people come to terms with Scavenger World, Jo from
Day of the Triffids being a prime example. Indeed, Wyndham himself went out of his way to show that being
too small-town conservative was fatal in the scary new world. People with a
Cold War mentality, who assume that the disaster is all the fault of the Russians and we just have to wait for Uncle Sam to send the Marines to help us, or pious types, who think that if we just say old-fashioned Anglican prayers and sing Anglican hymns and cling to Traditional Family Values then Jesus won't let anything horrid happen to us, are the people who are going down when things get nastier.
Now, a question. Is England the only place that produces this stuff? It's widely held that British fiction is often cuter, cosier and quainter than its American counterparts. Compare a detective story by
Agatha Christie with one by
Raymond Chandler, for instance. But America is famous for its small-town values, and other countries, such as New Zealand have a high cosiness factor in parts, so let's hear a few examples from various areas.
Expect
Ghibli Hills since there's not as much pollution and construction.
Examples:
Literature
- Obviously, the work of John Wyndham, especially The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, Chocky and The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed twice as The Village of the Damned, and parodied on The Simpsons as The Bloodening)
- The Changes by Peter Dickinson (and BBC Children's Television spin-off). Funny noise/feeling causes all white people in England to reject all technology beyond the horse and cart.
- Arslan AKA The Wind from Bukhara by American author M.J. Engh. Weird Uzbek dictator conquers the world. Sets up headquarters in a nice, Christian town in Illinois.
- Alas, Babylon brings a cosy World War III to a sleepy central Florida town.
- SM Stirling's Emberverse series, in which the mysterious Change has killed off high-energy-density technology (electricity, gunpowder, steam engines...), is at least a partial example of this trope; while many of the successful survivors are unusual in some way--bush pilot, ex-SAS, member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, etc--the only "gangs" that do really well are the ones specifically recruited by a would-be warlord to serve as muscle. In general, having a sense of community and a willingness to work hard is more valuable than mere combat readiness. Sitting around waiting for the Army to show up and fix things is also explicitly noted as being generally fatal.
- An American example would be ''The Girl Who Owned A City"; a
piece of Anvilicious Objectivist propaganda children's novel where The Plague wiped out every one on Earth over the age of twelve (in two weeks' time...). The novel's suburban children get on quite well in this curiously clean, decay-free world. Or at least they do once the novel's Ayn Rand stand-in heroine steps in and teaches them The Right Way.
- Lucifer's Hammer, written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, has most of the surviving middle-class suburbanite types hooking up with the farmers and a Senator for survival. The military, gangsters, and general "badasses", along with an insane preacher and group of environmentalists become a cannibal army. Amazingly, this isn't nearly as anvilicious as it sounds.
Live Action TV
- The Survivors on the BBC. Biological Warfare lab lets a virus escape. A few people happen to be immune, but everyone else dies. Story focuses on small group of survivors in England, mostly white and middle class.
- Arguably, Lost. Although the disaster is limited to those who were the plane, the other trope characteristics apply: a largely middle-class group of people trying to survive in a dangerous situation. Of course, middle-class or not, these people didn't lead cosy lives beforehand (e.g., high incidence of daddy problems).
- On The Beach has a full scale nuclear war, of which the only survivor is Australia; the only country none of the aggressors were mad at and "upwind" of the fallout. Wind currents made sure to spread the radiation to every other country in the northern hemisphere, and with Australia soon to follow most Australians deal with impending death with dignity.
Video Games
- The Car Wars gaming system is set in a sorta Mad Max-type world circa 2030-odd. However, while there are biker gangs out in the in-between city zones, most of the real firepower is in the cities (where the factories are). Granted, "death sports" such as autodueling are all the rage, but daily life is still pretty recognizable. Commuting is a bit hairy, though (all those armed cars=road rage to the max).
Anime
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Trip) is one of the most laid-back depictions of the twilight of humanity ever; as seen through the eyes of an android coffee shop owner.
Film
- To some degree, '28 Days Later; although the survivors do have to pound and slash their way towards safety, they're all middle class, and they eventually make it to a calm, cozy little town in the middle of England.
- Movies about ZombieApocalypses are more likely to star ordinary middle-class survivors, especially horror/comedies like Shaun of the Dead.
- Since we're mentioning zombie movies, we should mention Evil Dead, whose shotgun-toting chainsaw-handed protagonist works in the Housewares department of S-Mart. "Shop smart, shop S-Mart!"
Comic Books
- Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead is about mostly normal middle-class people surviving a zombie-induced apocalypse. Granted, they have a tendency to get cabin fever and kill each other, but at least they started out normal.
