Corrupted Authority and Transgressive Villains in Young Adult Dystopias

This article examines how authority and transgression are dramatised through villainous figures in contemporary Young Adult (YA) dystopias, focusing on Coriolanus Snow in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games saga (2008-2010; prequel 2020), Scythe Goddard in Neal Shusterman’s Scythe (2016) and Thaddeus Valentine in Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (2001). While classic dystopias of the twentieth century often culminated in bleak warnings, YA dystopias oscillate between despair and hope, offering what Sambell (2003) terms “critical utopias”: spaces where resistance remains possible. By foregrounding adolescent perspectives, these narratives transform villains into catalysts for ethical inquiry, forcing protagonists and their readers to interrogate the legitimacy of power. Snow weaponises scarcity and humiliation, Goddard reframes death as spectacle and Valentine cloaks violence in paternal respectability. Read through theoretical lenses including Arendt, Foucault and Girard, these figures illustrate how authority is rehearsed, corrupted and finally destabilised. More than narrative antagonists, they shape adolescent subjectivity by modelling the costs and limits of rebellion. Beyond the fictional realm, YA dystopias resonate with contemporary youth activism. From Fridays for Future to the March for Our Lives and the Umbrella Movement, young people mobilise across borders using performative strategies reminiscent of dystopian protagonists. Social media and emerging technologies, though susceptible to authoritarian control, are equally repurposed for solidarity, critique and storytelling. YA dystopias thus function not as escapist fantasies but as affective rehearsals for civic engagement, equipping readers with frameworks to recognise corruption, resist domination and reimagine the future as a contested terrain of possibility.