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An important characteristic of a dystopian novel is the event that fundamentally changed society into its current dystopia. The event can be something like a war, a pandemic, or a new technology. "Scythe," the event was when the cloud developed awareness, becoming the Thunderhead. The event is crucial to setting up the novel and helping us understand what kind of world the characters have grown up in.

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Some form of corruption is crucial in dystopian novels because it is what damages what would be a utopian world. The corruption can come in the form of a wicked individual, an idea or belief, a corrupted group or system, or some combination of these. In "Scythe," the corruption is complex, involving individuals with twisted ideologies such as Goddard's conventicle as well as issues and secrets within Scythe leadership that made the system fundamentally corrupted.

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Resistance to the corruption is another key part of dystopian novels. Sometimes the resistance is a true resistance group fighting to take down the government and bring about revolution. Sometimes it is an ideology that rivals or critiques the corruption but exists within the confines of the dystopia, and doesn't aim to fundamentally change society. In "Scythe," by the end both types are present; Citra works to fight corruption from the inside, while Rowan works outside the system.

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The final key feature of dystopian literature is that it criticizes some facet of the present in order to illustrate to readers in the present how the dystopia can be applied to their own life and why the path that led to the dystopian society should never be followed. The primary critique in "Scythe" is that humans lose their drive for discovery and their inclination to give meaning to existence when that existence is both limitless and without strain.

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Dystopia has captured the attention of society for generations, but in recent years its popularity has exploded among young adults in particular. Perhaps this is because young people today are seeing their own society plunge into a dystopia. Compared to the relative prosperity and rapid development of the mid to late 20th century, today's teenagers and young adults have grown up in one crisis after another, from ongoing wars to financial crises, from political corruption to pandemics. Young people see their own world reflected in dystopian novels, and they see themselves as the forefront of the resistance as they recognize the corruption in their society.