58 pages • 1-hour read
FantasticLand
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Themes
The Psychological Effects of Isolation and Disaster
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
In FantasticLand, the psychological impacts of solitude and catastrophe are central to the novel’s exploration of human nature. Initially, the employees trapped in the theme park maintained optimism for a quick rescue and clung to societal norms, but when “Paul the Puddle” fell and was killed by Brock, the tone in the park shifted. Isolated from the outside world and lacking leadership from management, they descended into tribalism and brutality. Through the various ways that the employees dealt with their new circumstances, the novel demonstrates how prolonged disaster can strip individuals of their moral boundaries and even their identities, leaving only survival as the basis for their decisions and actions.
Brock Hockney’s evolution into the primary antagonist of the novel begins almost immediately, as the interviews describe him taking advantage of the group’s desperation and uncertainty to establish himself as a leader. His authority was bolstered by the park’s detachment and isolation, which also contributed to the employees’ increased willingness to suspend their morals and commit acts of cruelty. The environment of FantasticLand, originally designed to be a place of joy and escapism, became a battleground where survival instincts overrode rational thought. Brock took advantage of circumstances and further cemented his leadership position by urging his followers to lose their inhibitions, which he justifies by claiming, “Freeing these men and women of their fear was just as much an act of mercy as putting that poor dying man out of his misery” (246). More than just encouraging violence, Brock seemed to view it as a gift he gave the Pirates, playing into his new identity as he established a new moral reality for himself and his followers.
As other characters describe how they established their positions in the new reality, they illustrate the different possible paths to survival through their approaches. Clara Ann Clark emerged as the leader of the ShopGirls, a group that focused on security, emphasizing how deeply distrust gripped the survivors, forcing them to anticipate threats. When the ShopGirls involved in the cannon strike group were attacked by the Deadpools, Clara’s unsurprised and resigned reaction shocked the anonymous ShopGirl, who notes, “[W]hat [Clara] was telling me is that, if we were never rescued, we were going to keep killing and killing and killing each other until there was just one person left on a mountain of bodies” (190). Clara’s anticipation of violence led her to strategize accordingly, creating a self-fulfilling cycle where violence beget more violence. Jason, who chose complete isolation, also emphasized security but didn’t anticipate how his seclusion would heighten his psychological distress. While the Warthogs hunted him, his every waking moment was spent afraid of capture, highlighting how his choice to isolate didn’t protect him. Even those who attempted neutrality, like Gemma and Morgan at the First Aid Station, could not escape the creeping influence of violence. They attempted neutrality, refusing to join a tribe, but were subject to violence all the same, showing how their moral choices and identity as caregivers didn’t protect them in this new reality.
Ultimately, FantasticLand examines how extreme isolation and disaster erode human identity and morality, forcing individuals to adopt new roles to survive. Some employees, like Brock, embraced power and manipulation and were ultimately put in jail when the outside world returned to shatter their carefully crafted reality. Other characters, like Clara, Jason, and Gemma, struggled between self-preservation and morality, but none of them successfully transcended the demands of their new environment. Regardless of how they dealt with their circumstances, every character left FantasticLand a different person than they were before disaster struck. The novel presents a grim view of how quickly civilization can collapse when individuals are removed from societal expectations, as the need to survive tests their morality and their very sense of identity.
The Descent Into Tribalism and Violence in Lawless Environments
In FantasticLand, Mike Bockoven explores the swift descent into chaos when authority breaks down, demonstrating how order disintegrates without oversight and strong leadership. When Hurricane Sadie isolated the theme park employees, management initially tried to maintain structure. Unfortunately, management was not familiar enough with the Disaster Manual protocols, and their leadership was weak. Without strong leadership, other leaders stepped into the vacuum and asserted control. Instead of one overarching leadership team, tribes formed based on the sections of the park, highlighting how quickly unity can disintegrate in the face of a loss of law and order.
The disintegration of the park’s organizational structure happened early on, exacerbated by Brock’s immediate creation of the Pirates. He believed that “[i]f management couldn’t provide people with the most basic of needs, or, indeed, if they kill someone who is questioning their leadership choices, all bets [we]re off, [we]re they not?” (244). Because he did not view leadership as legitimate, Brock created his own set of rules and asserted control. His first act as a leader was to crush a dying man’s head with a stanchion, quickly establishing violence as a component of the park’s new culture. This act triggered a fear response from all the witnesses, who quickly formed their own tribes and established their own areas and rules. Once groups formed, each tribe became obsessed with safeguarding its own supplies and resources and adding to them.
Under Brock’s leadership, the Pirates became notorious for their ruthlessness, asserting dominance through ritualized harm and intimidation tactics. First, they focused on a weak tribe, the Fairy Prairie, kidnapping and killing those in that section. The Pirates were not focused on survival—by all accounts, there were plenty of supplies to go around—but on dominance. Several interviewed Pirates emphasize the group’s code and loyalty, but Stuart scathingly critiques their behavior: “I’ve heard a few of those assholes saying they enjoyed the atmosphere of living by an honor code or some such shit, but where’s the honor in holding down a fifty-year-old grandmother and beating the hell out of her in the rain?” (178). The Pirates’ rationalization of their actions as honorable shows how warped social norms became, and their dominance forced the other groups to adopt this new reality. Originally coalescing defensively, the Deadpools were gradually pulled into escalating clashes, mirroring the slow erosion of humanity in desperate conditions. Even the ShopGirls, once hyper-focused on protecting the shops on the Golden Road, engaged in preemptive attacks against perceived threats. This downward spiral, even in groups that tried to adopt a different approach, highlights how the overall lawlessness left them no option but to participate.
The devolution of the park’s community reached a climax with the “Council of Pieces,” as the last shred of idealism was extinguished by violence. Two idealistic leaders—Riley of the Deadpools and Charlie of the Mole Men—attended, believing that it could be a positive and collaborative way forward, and were killed by a trap set by the Pirates. Gemma points out that the meeting “was sort of working until Brock Hockney fired that cannon. After that, the tribes only looked out for themselves, so it was much, much harder to provide what little care [they] could” (205). The meeting illustrates that rational discourse cannot flourish when brute force applies unrelenting pressure. Without a stabilizing influence, violence flourishes, reinforcing the novel’s central argument: Stripped of structure, humanity reverts to its most primal instincts.
The Role of Storytelling and Perspective in Shaping Truth
In FantasticLand, Bockoven delves into the role of storytelling and perspective in shaping truth through the novel’s interview structure. The story unfolds in a disconnected fashion through meetings directed by journalist Adam Jakes, forcing readers to piece together events from interviews and evidence. With this structural choice, Bockoven spotlights the inherently unreliable nature of narration, as every interviewee presents a different version of the story, often attempting to justify or explain away their actions. The discrepancies between the characters’ testimonies encourage a skeptical view of every account, emphasizing the novel’s message that truth is subjective and molded by individual perspective.
The conflicting reports on Sophie Ruskin offer one of the novel’s most compelling demonstrations of unreliable narration. Some witnesses claimed that she committed shootings, but many other employees insisted that the shooter was a man, leading to her exoneration. However, Sophie’s interview reveals the truth, as she admits that she was driven by anger, grief, and revenge and had access to an arsenal of guns. The witness accounts are also called into question by the fact that the shooter mainly targeted the Pirates, who attacked every other tribe in the park, raising the question of whether the witnesses were protecting Sophie. In this case, the novel presents witnesses whose unreliability is based on their sympathies for Sophie, emphasizing the fact that every interviewee has a personal agenda and shapes their story accordingly.
The novel also highlights the subjectivity and unreliability of the various characters’ stories through Sam Garliek’s story. Sam portrays himself as a hero when he talks to Adam Jakes, but every other employee depicts him as incompetent. Later, the novel reveals that he spent the two weeks before their rescue locked in an office, implying cowardice. However, this depiction of cowardice and incompetence is undermined by what Sam did manage to accomplish: He had the forethought to film the “Council of Pieces,” providing the evidence necessary to convict Brock. Brock himself is also presented through many conflicting reports. He presents himself as a visionary leading his tribe rather than as a killer, a perspective that many of the Pirates support. However, this representation conflicts with the other employees’ accounts, which highlight his brutality, cruelty, and unnecessary violence. This issue of perspective goes beyond individual accounts to larger groups—the FantasticLand board attempts to cover up the incident entirely, while the Florida National Guard downplays the more gruesome aspects, highlighting the role that one’s agenda plays in the shaping of narration.
Ultimately, FantasticLand presents the employees’ shaping of the truth as both a method of survival and rationalization after the fact. The novel scrutinizes the subjectivity of truth, showing how memory and perspective twist reality, leaving readers to assemble their own interpretation of occasions. By structuring the novel as a series of interviews, Bockoven spotlights the idea that the truth of an event isn’t a solitary, conclusive record but rather an accumulation of voices and perspectives that, together, create the story.
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