V for Vendetta
Dystopian Fiction
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
What is a Dystopia?
Derived from the Greek dys (“ill” or “bad”) and topos (“place”), the word Dystopia literally means “Bad Place”.
A Dystopia is normally an imagined state or society in which great suffering or injustice occurs, typically one that is totalitarian by nature and in which information, independent thought, and freedom are restricted, censored, or ignored by the masses.
An Iconic Dystopian Fiction—
V for Vendetta Summary
In a near-future version of a 1990s dystopian Britain, nuclear war decimates most of Europe, creating a massive power vacuum in the country’s leadership. In the aftermath, the racist, homophobic, and neo-fascist Norsefire party seizes control, restoring order in a postwar fashion, but at a serious human price.
In gruesome Resettlement Camps, the party imprisons, tortures, and kills all citizens it deems to be undesirable—people it sees as a threat to it’s power. Gay people, immigrants, racial minorities, other political parties, Jews, Muslims, and all non-Christians are all labeled dissenters and eliminated, including the cultural echoes they may have already left on British society.
Led by Leader Adam Susan, the authoritarian Norsefire government allows its surviving citizens very few freedoms under the guise of it being for their own safety and protection from radicals and other governments. From food shortages and environmental-induced illnesses to state sponsored fear campaigns and a steady stream of state-produced propaganda, surveillance cameras record every move and word from citizens, allowing any dissent within the citizenry to be quickly suppressed.
Broken into three separate books: Europe After the Reign, This Vicious Cabaret, and The Land of Do-As-You-Please, it’s November 5, 1997.
On this day nearly 400 years prior, in 1605, an infamous dissenter, Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up London’s House of Lords in what became known as the failed “Gunpowder Plot.” Sixteen-year-old Evey Hammond, desperate for money, dresses and readies herself for a foray into prostitution. As she is out, “Fingermen”, a group of secret police corner, nearly raping and killing Evey. She is saved though by a mysterious man known only as V. Immediately after saving the young woman from the horrific fate, V does what Guy Fawkes could not and blows up London’s Houses of Parliament, showing Evey the entire spectacle.
Afterwards, bringing Evey to his home, V exposes her to an array of books, film, music, and other forms of culture that Norsefire attempted to erase after the war. She then reveals her orphaned status, her parents being political dissidents murdered by the government.
V’s true identity is unknown, however his backstory comes to light as the vigilante tracks down and kills all those who committed crimes against humanity in Larkhill Resettlement Camp, a government condoned facility where hormone testing, torture, and other grotesque atrocities were conducted on their prisoners, V being one of them.
Investigator Eric Finch is unknowingly recruited by V in this time to validate the truth of V’s experiences, learning of the high profile nature of those involved in Larkhill. Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a serial pedophile, spreads lies in sermons at Westminster Abbey, Dr. Delia Surridge, Lewis Prothero, the actual voice behind the state-sponsored media, all of whom were complicit in disregarding the sanctity of the human lives of those prisoners at Larkhill.
High jacking London’s airwaves, V delivers a message to the country, not only condemning the dictators in power, but berating those who put them there and remained silent as people’s lives and freedoms were stolen.
He calls on London’s citizens to be better.
In this time Evey is captured by the state police and imprisoned. It is here that she discovers a note left by a former prisoner. Valerie, a lesbian actress, was rounded up, imprisoned and experimented on before being killed by the government. In her letter, Valerie decries Norsefire’s persecution and oppression, telling her reader, Evey, that if people can live with integrity, they can ultimately preserve their personal freedom.
In this moment, a once-fearful Evey refuses to confess to false crimes that spare her further pain and chooses death knowing the truthfulness of her innocence. Making this choice, the guard tells her that she is free. Once she walks out of her cell, Evey realizes that V simulated her entire imprisonment. Outraged at first, V tells Evey he did this out of love—he wants her to be free from the mental prison that she and her fellow citizens have been locked in under Norsefire’s reign.
V not only inspires this individual, but all of Britain to now choose freedom and true order over oppression and chains.
Moore feared our complacency and ignorance would ruin us
The days where the fiction stayed in the books is in the past:
What is V for Vendetta about?
It’s rather interesting that fascism is always attributed to Right-Wing and Conservative ideologies. As if Leftists are immune to power and authoritarianism.
“If our own government was responsible for the deaths of almost a hundred thousand people... would you really want to know?”
—Finch, V for Vendetta film (2005)
These are the questions people are asking about Covid 19 Pandemic and the email trails between the United States Government and scientists scrambling to craft narratives about the virus’ true origins. Why are questions about the CIA being the largest source of funding to EcoHealth Alliance being suppressed?
We know that American Elites on both sides of the aisle are getting rich by colluding with China, a communist nation, including the extremely Left leaning Biden Administration.
While Edward Bernays and modern marketers advocate for state-sponsored media and propaganda, Moore and many others warn us of the dangers that come from the regular consumption of government productions. Bernays was under the belief that Democracy requires an invisible, supra-governmental body to sift and sort information on behalf of public interest, stating that “society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds.” Marketing strategies are filled with the tactics Edward Bernays pioneered in the early Twentieth Century blurring the boundary between truth and agendas.
Modern American and even global culture receives ideas in a mass, wholesale fashion. From White House social media marketing campaigns to Google Ads and Big Tech censorship, governments across the globe are becoming overt in their systematic actions to influence the public’s actions within economic, societal, theological, and political constructs.
Rather than falling in line with the herd, being complacent through sins of omission and accepting the political narrative of any administration, every individual must choose between freedom and true order, or the oppression and chains that arise from government “safety.”
In both fact and fiction, Utopias will always propagate Dystopias.
Kawika Miles is an American dystopian author who indulges in conversations of faith, family, and freedom. As a long time patriot, Kawika understands that only liberty minded individuals can save the future from the dystopian nightmare it is tumbling down, protecting the sanctity of life and individual independence. Read his debut novel Saga of the Nine: Origins today!
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