Tropes and Cliches

World Building: Civil War

Civil war is possibly one of the worst out there. It pits family and friends against one another. It's horrible. Looking at actual history, you'd think you can understand what I'm talking about. In the US the civil war was fought over slavery. And before you say it wasn't, it was. In the south, slavery was more common than in the north. They saw the idea of abolishing slavery as a violation of state rights. Not to mention the economical strain it would place on the south due to slavery being the main source of labor for many( it doesn't have to be plantations it can be house work or even shopkeeping). In the five years the war took place, the north practically fucked everything up from destroying railroads to burning everything to the ground. And this is a sugarcoated, watered down version of what I want to say, because I'm sick of all the messages from Wattpad saying I'm violating something when I'm clearly toeing the line I have yet to cross.

Civil Wars both real and fictional have provided excellent opportunities for stories, as depicted morality can be all over the board. The fact that both sides believe themselves to be justified allows for an authorial portrayal of both sides having good people fighting for what they believe in along with a couple of real bastards on both sides. Often, while one side may indeed be presented as morally superior, there will be a Worthy Opponent among the enemy ranks and the Perspective Flip is common. Along with that, there can be Star-Crossed Lovers pining for each other across the battlefield and families split by the tension of what they believe is right.

How does a civil war help with world building? Well a lot of things. Let's use The Avengers, The Legend of Korra, Percy Jackson and the Olympians and other works that feature some sort of civil war.

Let's start with Percy Jackson. There is both a civil war and an actual war going on in the first series. You have the threat of the titans along side that very unspecific prophecy looming along side campers from Camp Halfblood that are siding with the titans because they're all pissed at the gods. Why? Well on one hand you can sort of sympathize with them : they're constantly looking over their shoulders for monsters, most of them have only the camp because they (a) have no home to go back to because the mortal parent kicked them out( or they left on their own accord) to protect their non-demigod siblings or (b) was made into an orphan, most of them have no idea who their godly parent is/ is pissed because their parent picked a favorite and never bothered with everyone else. On the other hand without this, the gods would not have gotten their shit together and actually sort of be parents. You literally have campers fighting people they made swords with, sang songs with, and maybe even bunked with fighting each other. A lot of people don't count this as a Civil War, but I do. You literally split a camp in half ,more or less, and it was then the gods realized that maybe they could be better parents. They don't have to check in on them all the time, but a simply popping in a few times or a rainbow call every now and then would be nice.  It also set up the next series " Hereos of Olympus". A lot of the campers are dead or injured and it left a pretty nasty mark on the camp. A lot of cabins are trying to keep it together but they lost their cabin leader, siblings, and friends. Plus there were a lot of changes set up. 

Next is Avengers...well actually the Marvel universe in general. If you've seenCaptain America :Civil War, you know where I'm going with this. If you seen X-men then you can get a general idea. Now the idea of supers being documented and tracked is something that has always been part of the Marvel universe whether it's the Avengers or the X-men but it's different versions of the same thing. With the X-men, mutants have always been treated differently than humans( Stan Lee actually used racism, religious bias, and other negative ideology when creating the X-men as a social commentary) due to their abilities and/or appearance. Some people were like " Why should they be registered, they haven't done anything to us" and others were like " We need to know who they are and what they can do to protect national security because there are telepaths, teleporters, people who can walk through walls, and shapeshifter" With the Avengers, it was to keep track of all super humans because they weren't kept in check. This divided teams, families, and friends. One hand, they're right, there are those who would abuse their abilities. But on the other, they're literally targeting a specific group, many of which just want to live as close to normal as possible.

Book 2 of The Legend of Korra there is some sort of civil war. Book 1 it's between Bender and non benders, but that could be filed under Civil Unrest. Book 2 starts off with the Northern Water Tribe imposing martial law on the Southern Water Tribe. Considering that the Southern Water Tribe does not recognize Northern leadership and has been allowed to self-govern for almost a century or even longer, this predictably resulted in an insurgency.The end of Book 2 revealed that the civil war was built on false pretenses. Northern Chief Unalaq (probably) didn't give a crap about what the South was doing. He instead wanted unfettered, exclusive access to the Southern Spirit Portal located in Southern Water Tribe territory, and the simplest way to do that was to impose martial law as justification to plant a military base around the portal. 

So when writing a Civil War into you world's history, there are many things you have to take in mind. For starters, how did it start and why? A lot of people miss the mark when doing this but it's not really that bad. Now answer the how is simple, someone shot first.  The why is a little trickier. For starters, let's look at actual civil wars. The American Civil War was about state's rights to own slaves, say the complete sentence, there's your why. Your how is the attack on Ft. Sumter. Now if you want to start a civil war or have it mentioned in your world's past then you need details. You can say that there was a divide on how they should rule the people and the war broke out after a riot broke out and an important child was killed in the chaos. Or if the conflict is ongoing, think about how long it has been since the start and pull a Romeo and Juiliet and have no one remember the exact details on why there was/is a war just know that both sides have/ had issues with each other. Also think about the aftermath. Not everything goes back to normal afterwards. Are there memorials? Do you have people still hold resentment of the outcome of it? It's not a fun thing to write, but it can help shape the world around your story.