It’s believing that humanity may not be inherently good, but we’re not inherently bad either, and that giving people the chance to prove themselves compassionate is a worthwhile choice. It’s Naomi choosing to open the Roci’s door to let in as many desperate Ganymede refugees as possible in The Expanse. Hopepunk is Curtis blowing up the train at the end of Snowpiercer, or Max and Furiosa deciding to risk everything and go back to the Citadel at the end of Mad Max: Fury Road. Even if your hero dies, hopepunk suggests that someone else will be there to take up her torch and carry on.”

Hopepunk is really about showing readers that we can make it through even the most difficult situations. “I don’t mean to suggest it’s all about having a happy ending, because you can have a pretty ambivalent, broody ending that still conveys hope. “The idea is to tell a story where there are hopeful elements or maybe a hopeful resolution to the characters’ struggles,” Newitz says. For Newitz, hopepunk isn’t a subgenre but rather “a reason to tell stories, a motivation, or maybe a narrative tone.” “I think it’s a reaction against the overwhelmingly nihilistic, dystopian slant to a lot of stories in the world right now,” says author Annalee Newitz ( The Future of Another Timeline). Read more: Autuonomous - Robots, Love, and Identity Under Capitalism Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning, that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth-especially if we do it together. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline. To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act.

A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland