Borrrring
I've mentioned it before, but Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built In Hell is all about this sort of thing. Ordinary people working together to take care of each other. Elites and security forces (police/army) losing it and causing harm. Highly recommended.
Were these self destruct devices real or imaginary?
Menace is absolutely the right word. Might as well take our tax dollars and set them on fire.
There was definitely a lot of fighting in the film. :D
I've only seen the movie
I think demanding smiles is a sort of power move. Just an exercise in dominance. Yuck.
As I understand it, she's mostly written YA. But Encyclopedia of Faeries + Map of the Otherlands is not, and I really enjoyed them. Early 19th c English academics investigating faeries (which is a known thing, "dryadology")