Utopia/Dystopia

August 2020 SWG challenge Utopia-Dystopia banner

For more than a decade, the SWG has encouraged its members to focus on the sometimes overlooked Second Age of Middle-earth for “Akallabêth in August”.

The Second Age sees the creation of new realms—such as Eregion or Númenor—founded in hope and idealism after the War of Wrath. But in Arda Marred, good things never last. Eregion is overrun by Sauron, and Númenor descends into aggression and tyranny. In an earlier age, the seemingly perfect environment of Valinor becomes a prison to some of its inhabitants, while later even the idyllic Shire turns foul under Saruman’s influence. Whether the seeds of destruction are brought in from outside or whether they were there from the start, the fragility of bliss, the Fall from Grace and the slippery slope from good intentions to evil deeds are a frequent theme in Tolkien’s works.

To reflect both the idealistic beginnings and the dark endings that are so frequent in the Legendarium, we invite you to create a fanwork inspired by utopian or dystopian prompts from novels, songs, artworks, or films. Your fanwork doesn’t have to be utopian or dystopian in itself, nor does it have to be about the Second Age (though of course there will be special stamps if it is); it simply has to respond to your prompt—wherever that prompt takes you.

This month, you will select your own prompt from the list below.

This challenge opened in .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Quotes
Utopia
Dystopia
  • "The rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man’s discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country."
    - Thomas More, Utopia
  • "They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war; and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny."
    - Thomas More, Utopia
  • “Poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man’s own loss and another’s gain - these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.” - Plato, The Republic
  • "Do not let the bread of the hungry mildew in your larder! Do not let moths eat the poor man's cloak. Do not store the shoes of the barefoot. Do not hoard the money of the needy. Things you possess in too great abundance belong to the poor and not to you. You are the thief who steals from God if you are able to help your neighbour and refuse to do it."
    - Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
  • "But for long the crews of the great Númenórean ships came unarmed among the men of Middle-earth; and though they had axes and bows aboard for the felling of timber and the hunting for food upon wild shores owned by no man, they did not bear these when they sought out the men of the lands."
    - J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales
  • "Come, my friends,
    'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
    Push off, and sitting well in order smite
    The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
    To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
    Of all the western stars, until I die.
    It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
    It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
    And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
    Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
    We are not now that strength which in old days
    Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
    One equal temper of heroic hearts,
    Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
    To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
    - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
  • "We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere."
    - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
  • "That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times."
    -Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower
  • "To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone - to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink - greetings!"
    - George Orwell, 1984
  • "The slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other places have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labor, and are always chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are treated much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage."
    - Thomas More, Utopia
  • "But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
    - Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World
  • "Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow-sailors.."
    - Plato, The Republic
  • "'District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,’ I mutter. Then I glance away quickly over my shoulders. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market."
    - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
  • "'The king and queen grow old, though all know it not, for they are seldom seen. They ask where is the undying life that Sauron promised them if they would build the Temple for Morgoth. The Temple is built, but they are grown old. But Sauron foresaw this, and I hear (already the whisper is gone forth) that he declareth that Morgoth’s bounty is restrained by the Lords, and cannot be fulfilled while they bar the way. To win life Tarkalion must win the West. We see now the purpose of the towers and weapons. War is already being talked of - though they do not name the enemy. But I tell thee: it is known to many that the war will go west to Eressea: and beyond. Dost thou perceive the extremity of our peril, and the madness of the king? Yet this doom draws swiftly near.'" - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lost Road
  • "Once more in the street, he looked up at the sky. Overhead was the familiar, smoke-tinged blue, but in the motionless facades of the buildings, in the many curtained shops, in the emptiness of the streets, and in the furtive silence of the few passers was something chilling and sinister. Before the big guns of the invaders' battleships in the harbor below, what houses of cards all these apparently substantial structures! He knew that, in many of the trades which they housed, the margin of profit -- gained with infinite care and worry -- was figured so closely that without the usual pressure of daily business one would follow another in a widening circle of disaster, no less ruinous than destruction from bombardment."
    - Austin T. Wright, Islandia
  • "'It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,' Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
    - Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery
  • "'If I tried to get away with it,' said George, 'then other people'd get away with it--and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?'
    'I'd hate it,' said Hazel.
    'There you are,' said George. 'The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?'"
    - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "Harrison Bergeron

Artwork
Utopia
Dystopia

Songs
Utopia
Dystopia
  • "In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)" by Zager and Evans (lyrics | video)
  • "Big Brother" by David Bowie (lyrics | video)
  • "Waiting for the Worms" by Pink Floyd (lyrics | video)
  • "Out of the Silent Planet" by Iron Maiden (lyrics | video)
  • "Silent Running" by Mike + the Mechanics (lyrics | video)

Film/Video
Utopia
Dystopia

Fanworks Tagged with Utopia/Dystopia

This is a Writing fanwork

Glimpses of a Life in Ennore by Lferion

Maentâl Sílorion appeared in chapter 7 of Pages from the Archives of Cîr Imladris. He insisted on having more of his story told. Each chapter is intended to be able to stand alone.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Reflection, Refraction, Release by Lferion

A view from two sides of a mirror, and what happens when those trapped are freed.

A Drabble sequence: 1,2,2,1.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

The Bitter Glass by Himring

Do not look in the bitter glass... 

A poem drawing on the account of the song battle of Finrod Felagund with Sauron in the First Age. 

A poem against pessimism and disillusionment, if you will. 

I also had the Mirror of Galadriel and Galadriel's advice to Sam in mind. 

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

In the Forest: Night by Lferion

Celegorm, Returned, faces a challenge. A double-drabble.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Spring in Doriath by Himring

Doriath welcomes the spring.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Here, Where We Are by Lilith

A series of short pieces designed to respond to the Utopia challenge and surrounding the building of Eregion.

It responds to this prompt:

"We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere."

     - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass


But it also carries this quote in mind: 

"There is no Zion, save where you are."

    -- Tony Kushner, Angels in America


Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

The Gallant Gravedigger by Lyra

Atanacalmo of Armenelos, main censor, has to decide what to do about a political play. To make matters more complicated, Princess Vanimeldë is highly interested in the play's success...

 

A sort of spin-off to The Embalmer's Apprentice, probably only makes sense if you're already familiar with the characters. Written for August 2020's Utopia/Dystopia challenge. Contains no actual spoilers for TEA. No gravediggers or embalmers were (further) harmed in the making of this narrative.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Elenna by Grundy

Elros is building his new country - and missing those he left behind.

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This is a Writing fanwork

The Chosen by Gadira

As Middle-Earth lies under the yoke of the greatest tyranny in the world since the days of Morgoth, a woman from an unnamed mountain village is chosen. This is her story.

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This is a Writing fanwork

The Place, the People by Himring

Turgon, who failed to evacuate Gondolin in time, will eventually become a driving force behind the successful evacuation of Tirion when Pharazon's army invades Valinor.

But the story begins with his return to Tirion from Mandos.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Here, Where We Are by Lferion

Elrond muses on the idea of Elves being 'for the world'. A triple drabble.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Preparation by StarSpray

After Gil-Estel appears, Círdan takes council with Ossë.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Eye Deal. by hennethgalad

for the Utopia/Dystopia challenge.

  • "But for long the crews of the great Númenórean ships came unarmed among the men of Middle-earth; and though they had axes and bows aboard for the felling of timber and the hunting for food upon wild shores owned by no man, they did not bear these when they sought out the men of the lands."
    - J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales


  Ar-Pharazôn accepts the 'surrender' of Sauron.    

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This is a Writing fanwork

Pages from the Archives of Cîr Imladris by Lferion

Elrond took his library with him to Valinor. In that archive are many things, and the librarians and archivists of Cîr Imladris (New Rivendell) are kept delightfully busy.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents