A dystopia is a negative, imagined place that harbors a bad system and has miserable, pessimistic inhabitants. The reason why I defined a dystopia like I did above was because many of the dystopian books I have read in the past are usually based on a negative and bad society that has citizens who are very unwilling to be a part of those societies. One of my favorite book series is the Lunar Chronicles series where it is set in a post-apocalyptic cyber like future but still is influenced by classic princess fairytales. In one of the later chapter of the first book, Cinder, many of the people were protesting being under the rule of another race. The series showed me how different people can all can be negatively affected by a bad society but also how they changed it and developed into something better. In that, I feel like many dystopian novels are meant to solve or alleviate the negative and bad world even if they don’t become “good”.
In some stories that I have read, it’s usually that the society is at a place where it can heal and grow, sometimes at the expense of the main character or a vital person in the story. Many stories and series such as Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent all had at some point had someone significant pass away in order for the society or for the people to be able to advance and be better. I think these stories also try to give the narrative and theme that sacrifices have to be made for things to get better. I think many authors include this to portray that a bad place cannot be healed and changed without something having to give. With these sacrifices, it is common hat it causes problems for other characters of book and/ or film the but their sacrifice may have saved a whole group of people or their sacrifice freed the population.