Imagine someone able to hold, not just a few individuals hostage in this way, but an entire society. This is especially true in slasher films, where the hapless teens are ruthlessly hunted down by a cold, soulless killer who seemingly can’t be stopped. Something that makes horror so powerful as a genre is the idea of being helpless against someone or something hunting you down.
If you’ve ever seen that one Twilight Zone episode, “It’s a Good Life,” where a kid has godlike reality-bending abilities and uses them to take over and enslave the small town he lives in, then you know what I’m talking about.
So they keep the secret, because of course they do.Ī Single Powerful Being Holding Everyone Prisoner Problem is, if everyone is immortal and all-powerful, they will be obsolete.
So they sacrifice mortal lives to keep their temples full and their power ever-growing. But if they do, mortals won’t need to pray for them anymore, and they want to be worshiped. Fantasy: The gods who rule a fantasy world are more than capable of ending any and all famine, poverty, misery, and warfare.(Highly recommend reading Heather Walter’s Malice, which does something similar with Fae magic and the wealthy humans with access to it.) Fantasy: The nobility in a society that runs on magic has been hoarding all of the magic, hosting lavish parties and waging war on helpless neighbors, all while their own people starve in the streets.This makes for a couple of opportunities in your writing: an easy-to-hate antagonist, a relatable dilemma, a speculative take on where our own society could end up in the very near future if nothing changes, and maybe even a chance to present solutions, albeit in a sci-fi/fantasy setting.
It seems so insanely outlandish–the greedy few sacrificing the many for themselves even when they don’t need to–and yet it isn’t outlandish at all, because it’s the world we live in. It is wanting for those resources because a few people born into wealth and influence decided to use that leg up in life to grant themselves more privileges, even if it comes at the expense of the people they’re supposed to serve. But I make an exception for it just because it really isn’t any kind of ‘scarcity’ at all: society isn’t wanting for vital resources or on the cusp of collapse because they’re dealing with a real shortage. One could argue that greedy leadership counts as a form of scarcity, albeit a kind of artificial scarcity caused by the inaction of those in power. I know this one sounds very unrealistic, and it’s hard to imagine our benevolent leaders using their position of power for their own financial gain at the expense of their own constituents, but really, anything is possible.