"pre-dystopian" narrative and what to label it...

Nogetsune said:

I have a story that is technically not dystopian, yet it features a society that one could possibly label as a dystopia. How is this possible? Well, the world isn't a dystopia when the story starts off. The narrative in question follows the journey of a protagonist who descends into villainy and slowly but surely turns the world from it's mundane status-quo to a science-fantasy hellhole choaked by polluted futurestric cityscape, riddled with massive inequality and fueld by magical energy provided via extracting the very souls of other worlds. The story has none of the typical elements of the dystopian narrative in the sense it's not about an oppressive government, there is no rebelion/fight for individuality at the heart of the story and this society in no way pretending it's anything less then a crapsack world. Even further, the world dosen't start out as being all that crappy....rather, it becomes progressively worse-off as the protagonist spirals downward into wickedness. In that reguard, you could call this a sort of "pre-dystopian" narrative in the sense then rather being focused on a dystopian society it shows the "before and after" kind of picture, chronicling the rise of a oppressive society(albeit one with a distinctly "capitalist" flavor as appose to one where a government is the culprit.) and focusing on the one who becomes the oppressor, rather then a member of the oppressed masses....Your following the tyrant on their rise to power, rather then the rebel as they bring the tyrant down.

So yeah...the story is not "dystopian" in the traditional sense by any means, yet features a very oppressive, crapsack society. So the question becomes...when labeling it, should I just bill it as "science fantasy chronicling the rise of a corrupt industrialist" rather then calling the society that is created in the story a "dystopia" or labeling the thing as "pre-dystopian?"

Any advice on this would be great.

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