Ep1 Of Welcome To Nightvale – Pilot Analysis

Dystopias, a common place for individuals to envision a perfect world, a utopia reality in which the world is a paradise, bearing ideas of ideal perfection. Let’s be real, if we look at the world we live in today, we’d realise that our world does not come close to a utopia. Not even the slightest. Good morning classmates, and Miss Hablos. Today I will be discussing how dystopian elements, such as how satire, character development, foreshadowing techniques in texts represent negative aspects of the real world, centering Americas most famous podcast, Ep1 of Welcome to Nightvale – Pilot, written by Jospeh Fink, Cranor, and voiced by Cecil Baldwin. All dystopian texts share similar ideas, using elements that shadow events happening in the world

In a section in the podcast, Cecil announces, “Local chapter of NRA is selling bumper stickers that read... “Guns don’t kill people, It’s impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it’s a miracle”… stand outside of your front door and shout “NRA!” to order one.” Here, The dark humour and sarcastic tone used here is significant as it mocks the American gun problem. *detail* its mockery of something so serious reflects how people are also treating the situation in real life, and by shadowing this, it also creates awareness to the reader that events in the podcast relate to the real world. He then states, “Carlos says that they’ve double checked the monitors… to put it plainly, there appears to be catastrophic earthquakes happening right there in nightvale that absolutely no one can feel… well, submit an insurance claim anyway, see what you can get, right?” This is a metaphor, once again reflecting upon our world and shadowing/talking about the catastrophic events happening around our world that no one seems to be aware of or pays any attention to. By using such a *word* to *word* our world, it further emphasises the brutalness and seriousness of the things we are choosing to

“Lights. Seen as the sky aove the Arbys… We know the difference. We’ve caught on to their game. We understand the “lights above the Arby’s” game. Invaders from another world… the future is here… about 100 feet above the Arby’s” This strange event and statement is a metaphor that warns us maybe with the path our world is going, a dystopian future is much closer than we actually think it is, and so we question, if it’s that close, is there really much hope? In a low voice, Cecil says “I fear for Night Vale… I fear for anyone caught between what they know and what they don’t yet know that they don’t know”. The word ‘fear’ itself depicts a negative connotation, and by not knowing the things we already don’t know future conveys the mysteriousness, what is being kept from us? What are we supposed to know that we don’t know? Cecil ends the podcast saying “Settling in to another clear night and pretty evening here in Nightvale. I hope you all out there have someone to sleep it through with. Or, at least good memories of when you did.” This statement is significant because the setting is based in a imaginary place somewhere in the future. Dystopian texts uses the future to warn us about the possible outcome of the world if we continue down the path were going now. And so if sleeping peacefully has become a ‘good memory’, it conveys the world has come to a point of despair, where