Bravery amidst darkness: Lessons from 'Mortal Engines', 'Harry Potter' still resound for Gen Z

The book series Mortal Engines by English author Philip Reeve tells the story of two plucky young adults who upend the social order of their world.

Mortal Engines takes place on Earth in the distant future, after a conflict called the Sixty Minute War ravages the world to such an extent that it leads to geological upheaval.

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At this time, an inventor later revered as a deity installs massive engines and wheels on the city of London, leading to the spread of a political philosophy called Municipal Darwinism. In this new era, only the strong traction cities survive, primarily those willing to eat smaller, weaker cities for their resources, while its people are enslaved and its culture erased so another machine can keep going.

Though the political nuances of class and economics were largely lost on me as a kid, they resonate now as a Canadian, my country under economic assault by the nation that was once our greatest and most steadfast ally — no longer, in my view.

It’s pretty rich that this is happening to us. Canada, for all its work to clean the blood from our own colonial past, might well be in the first stages of being conquered.

Before journalism, my first love was history, and as we acknowledge we are no longer in a world governed by norms and international law, we must also acknowledge that history didn’t end. From the Romans and the Carthaginians to the Israelis and the Palestinians, economic warfare has almost always preceded a shooting war. I do not say this for any other reason than to advocate for people to open their eyes.

I read a phenomenal feature earlier this week that took what has occurred in the United States and wrote an analysis of it as the Western media might write about an authoritarian in the global south or a super villain beholden only to their madness. It was a sobering read, and it put into context where the normies are.

I’m someone who is informed about the affairs of the entire world, occasionally to the detriment of my mental health. But is it not depressing to see so much suffering and conflict in the world? Is it not enraging, to see people with so much take from those with so little, or to see peoples who have lived peacefully together for most of their history now put on opposite sides of a wall?

I wasn’t the only kid who read Mortal Engines, just like I’m not the only one who read The Hunger Games or Harry Potter. I spent my childhood in this country having my brain filled with the idea that even when there is darkness, suffering and pain in the world, there is also bravery, light, and happiness.

Gen-Z sits there, I know. I see it in our eyes, and I hear it in our voices every day. I read it in our words in every language and I find it in our work, not merely patience for a moment to act, but also the will to wait for our moment.

I think what sort of will might it take in the real world to upend systems of oppression and stop runaway ideological trains? To build bridges over centuries of conflict in the name of a greater good and live out the promise building a better world. I do know Gen-Z has already decided these are the times in which we must make order from disorder, to step off the ride and chart out own course across unsteady ground.