deconstructing-panem

[deconstructing-panem]

more stories where falling in love is a horrifying fate worse than death rather than a source of comfort and hope. more stories where love is understood as a terminal affliction.

[deconstructing-panem]

[deconstructing-panem]

Epigraphs from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

different schools of thought, each personified and brought into snow's life by a main character

( gaul // highbottom // sejanus // lucy gray // tigris )

-> dr. gaul becomes his mentor, and his belief in the necessity of the capital and the hunger games -- the awful common power-- becomes all-consuming

-> he murders highbottom himself, rejecting the idea that there is a natural state of decency and lines that should not be crossed

-> sejanus is killed by the state after snow half-heartedly exposes his plans to flee from society back to nature, finally fed up with sejanus' increasingly loud discontent with the moral constraints of society

-> lucy gray slips out of his complete control and understanding, so his paranoia gets the best of him and he tries to murder her (to dissect her) -- but he can't be sure if he succeeded or not-- and he will never know for sure whether she truly meant to betray him (was she "misshapen" by the world or was it his meddling intellect)

-> tigris, eventually discarded from his life (and, notably, the only character who lives through the end of mockingjay), is initially so convinced of his goodness, but watches him transform into a tyrant under other influences; he can't bear to kill her but he shuts her away to rot