This is part of a world descript for a science fiction setting. If you got here by accident, hit the back button on your browser.
This concept has been largely softened in the books themselves, but I’m including the original (pre-rerelease) explanation from Victim below. It is still a movement in time point two, but largely for the parades and fear-mongering.
As Mica explains:
“It’s the reason why they stop the trains the day after tomorrow: for Remember The Victims Day. Also known as The Day of Remembrance. . . . Every year, they put on this big parade. All known murder victims, for as long as we’ve recorded murders, get at least a schoolkid holding their photo, if there is one. These schoolkids then all march in various parades around the world. Combined, these parades represent the victims. We have too many to fit in one parade, so they all get divided out, I think by where they’re from.
“The more recent, or better known, victims usually get a float. There they have some relative or important person make a speech about the value of that person’s life. For example, Ann Marie always gets her own float, and at least one important person talking about her. We all know her name because of studying who murdered her. But, in order to talk about him, we can only legally do it by talking about her. So, she gets her own float and people who give out speeches.”
“Wait, how much do we really know about her?” Rina asked, interrupting.
“Enough for someone to get up there and talk. But no one ever questions a victim’s worth to be up there. No matter what, they’re still honored. But we still have murders today, even with all the effort of the Remember the Victims Movement. Maybe because they never banned guns? Or because they never put adequate controls over them? Because any psycho with a knife can still murder people on the street? There are so many theories, and they undoubtedly come up at this parade. Some people even argue that the Remember the Victims Movement just deflects from the major social issues causing violence in our society. But no one ever agrees, all they do is debate and examine theories. How good is examining a problem if you don’t actually act to try to fix it?” I was rambling at this point, trying to follow where my thoughts were going.
(You get the idea. The Victim Remembrance Movement has had tremendous cultural influence by time point two. It is one of many social movements to come out of a theory known as The Imperfect System. Essentially, the world was supposed to be perfect by now after WW3. It’s not. People have nicknamed their new system’s fallacies ‘The Imperfect System’. Various social movements, holidays, and protests have grown out of a burning desire to reach a perfect system for humanity. When the shaky government comments on the Imperfect System, they claim that they are all still experimenting to try to figure out the best way to be.)
