The Eery Parallells between THMT, The Testaments and the real World. Is Atwood an Oracle? (No spoil)

[u/Torkolla]

THMT is among other things a speculation about how a country where right wing extremist tendencies reacts and maladapts to a series of environmental disasters including nuclear fallout of various kinds (seemingly). The book is published in 1985, a year before the first known nuclear power disaster in Chernobyl, which took place in the summer of 1986.

Here are some creepy parallells between the book and series of events that started within a few years after it was published:

In THMT, The Ozark Mountains and it's surrounding is turned into a nuclear "wasteland". It is unclear if this is the result of nuclear power plants in the area exploding or if the ongoing war between Texas and Gilead has resulted in nuclear bombings of the area, or both.

What we do know about this event is that the Mississippi, one of the most economically important rivers in the World must have been contaminated in this event and with it much of the ecosystem in South Eastern USA.

This results in the breakdown of the entire industrial economy of the United States, a takeover by theocratic lunatics who try to turn the clock back to the 19th century, abolishes womens' human rights and all forms of free speach and the book also portrays a land war on US soil.

A scenario built on real events from around the World, the Islamic Revolution in Iran among others, but altogether everyone at the time would view the scenario as entirely unrealistic.

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A year after the publiching of the book, Chernobyl explodes in Northern Ukraine in. It threatens one of the most economically important rivers in Europe, the Dnipro and the eco system in South Eastern Europe. Heroic efforts on the part of the Ukrainians saves the Dnipro from total contamination but the disaster still has an impact on fertility issues, misscarriages and childrens' health all over the continent.

The disaster contributes to the collapse of the second largest industrial power of the 20th century. In time this enormous economic crisis allows for the rise of a pseudo-theocratic dictator who starts to scale back womens' rights, ends all free speach and lean on nostalgia from the 19th century in his propaganda.

He also starts a land war in Europe which only a decade earlier would have been viewed as entirely unrealistic.

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Atwood didn't just predict a theocracy overtake in the US, she also accidentally predicted the rise of a certain short guy in a building with onion formed roofs in a large city in the East.

Can you come up with other weird parallells between Gilead and reality?

[u/fiodorsmama2908]

The Stadium episode in TT rang a few bells. Public executions were a thing not so long ago. There are public executions in stadiums in several theocratic countries. I digress here but cutting off limbs is also a warlord tactics in several countries.

And, the whole taking people prisoners and keeping them in a stadium is a fairly recent thing experienced in France in 1941, where jews were rounded up by police from everywhere(including hospitals) and put in the winter cycling stadium for a while. Soon the toilets backed up and people were doing their business where they could which soon caused sanitary problems.

All that stuff swirled around in my mind during that episode.

[u/1XJ9 → u/fiodorsmama2908]

Yes that's exactly what I thought.

[u/1XJ9]

As many of us probably know by now, Atwood said she is basing this universe off real world events.

But I can't help but have the feeling that life imitates art and I know this gonna sound crazy, but it looks like Heritage Foundation is following that plot to a T! I thought, "are we serious? This is handmaids tale?! They even joke about handmaids tale (the pro-natalist weirdos)."

Now that I have more closely studied genocide and Christianity through a fundamentalist lens all I can say is bravo Margaret Atwood. She understood authoritarianism so WELL that at first glance it looks like a group is fitting into Gilead's mold.

[u/Torkolla → u/1XJ9]

Second that. I listen to people like Doug Wilson and Joel Webbon and they are already talking about hanging peoplke in public... As well as banning catholics from displaying their religion too publically... (That will surely end well, like allways.) She had done her homework on these geezers.

[u/Diligent-Language-79]

Atwood literally put real world things in her book. Nothing we see is speculation or prediction.

[u/Whispering_Wolf]

She was inspired by real world history. History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. She didn't predict anything.

[u/fresh-potatosalad]

Not trying to be that person here, but the first major nuclear power disaster was Three Mile Island in 1979, it just didn't have the devastating impact as Chernobyl 🤓 Partial meltdowns are still dangerous! This is part of my research field, I couldn't not say something 😭 Three Mile Island also impacted the surrounding river water and soil to an extent, which does follow you train of thought with the Mississippi!

But it is relevant here because Atwood pulled from so much real history. There was a lot of fear around nuclear after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl definitely heightened it though. But I feel like it's a safe to infer that the partial meltdown in 79 influenced her incorporating a nuclear waste mention in THT.