#gregor and the code of claw

[leosdooley]

LIVING THROUGH MEMORIES.

thomas campbell // suzanne collins, gregor and the code of claw // czesław miłosz, the issa valley // vladimir nabokov // antonio porchia // l.m. montgomery, the story girl

[prophecyofgray]

"Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread..."

hello hello! this september 1st marks the 20 year anniversary of gregor the overlander, the first book in the underland chronicles series by suzanne collins! i wanted to do something special to celebrate and i thought a little (re)read event would be a lot of fun!

all of the details are in the images above (image descriptions provided), but here are the dates once more:

Aug. 7th-11th --- Gregor the Overlander

Aug. 12th-16th --- Prophecy of Bane

Aug 17th-21st --- Curse of the Warmbloods

Aug 22nd-26th --- Marks of Secret

Aug 27th-Sept. 1st --- Code of Claw

and remember to use the tag #TUC20 during the event to meet and interact with other fans + #TUC spoilers for any new readers we may have during this time. i'll be going through and reblogging posts, so feel free to tag me (@prophecyofgray) as well!

one more thing: i think it'd be a lot of fun if we did something extra special on the anniversary itself, but im not sure what. feel free to share ideas in the tags <3

that's it for now! boost this if u can + spread the underland chronicles agenda to your friends >:)

fly you high!

[annisefreya]

I really tried to live up to my "no such thing as a bad book for kids" values when my 5yo picked a random book off the library shelf... 

We just finished the last book of 5, and my goodness I hope this isn't one of those formative experiences he's going to be talking about in therapy when he's older!

The 'Gregor the Overlander' series by Suzanne Collins... Probably aimed at 11/12yos. Really good. Also really dark and does not pull its punches on the subjects of war and death. (I guess I should have expected this from The Hunger Games, but as it was for a younger audience I thought it might be less... about giving children PTSD.)

We stayed up late to finish it and now he is reeling from a book hangover and a main character death... I hope he doesn't have nightmares 😬

I told him he probably had a lot of big feelings and I was here if he wanted to talk. He said "I do want to talk but I don't exactly know what to say".

At least I will have a 'handy' frame of reference when I have to have some hard real life conversations with him...😐

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

Okay but 12 year old Gregor threw a whole ass doctor when he found out they moved his mom. This boy is fucking DONE WITH REGALIA'S BULLSHIT.

[mice-rats-daily]

Today’s rat is Ripred from Gregor and the Code of Claw!

[antique-symbolism]

An important and fascinating theme in The Underland Chronicles is the question of whether or not Fate actually exists and whether the prophecies are real or just nonsense the Underlanders are using to dictate and then make sense of their actions. That's why the ambiguity in "The Peacemaker" is such a good device.

On soft feet, by none detected,

Dealing death, by most rejected,

Killed by claw, since resurrected,

Marked by X, two lines connected.

Finally, they intersected,

Two lines met, one unexpected

You could read the Peacemaker as Ripred like the Underlanders did. But I think it's almost certain that Collins intended an alternate interpretation of Gregor as the Peacemaker.

Line 1: Gregor was always thought to be The Warrior. Despite constant attempts to act peacefully 'on soft feet,' nobody ever saw him as The Peacemaker. Even at the end of the story nobody detected that interpretation.

Line 2: "Dealing death" is obvious. He was stuck in many situations where killing was his only option. But his many attempts at peace were rejected by everyone who thought war and hatred was inevitable. You could also interpret "rejection" in the sense that he belongs in neither Underland nor Overland by the end of the story.

Line 3: He was nearly killed by The Bane's claw, he was prophecied to die, but ultimately survived. He also "killed" The Warrior by breaking Sandwich's sword, and then "resurrected" himself as Peacemaker.

Lines 4 and 5: His initial arrival in the first book connected the Overland and Underland in a way they had not been joined since Sandwich's initial arrival. It's also Gregor's act of standing up for peace as the better option that finally joins the rats and humans, an intersection of unlikely allies to build a better tomorrow.

Line 6: The two factions will still have difficulty trusting each other as the peace is established - to the rats, the humans are the unexpected party to keep the peace, and to the humans, the rats are.

[i-only-know-fandoms]

Since we're all talking about Suzanne Collins again now that the BoSaS movie is coming out soon, can we talk about her first book series, The Underland Chronicles? I know we all know she doesn't hold punches in THG, but holy shit, she does not hold punches! Those books literally changed me

[rin-solo]

Something I decided to cook up to celebrate the completion of the AHS 1 edit (YES THE FIRST BOOK HAS BEEN OVERHAULED AND IT'S SO MUCH BETTER NOW GO REREAD IF YOU LIKED IT PLEASE!! I PROMISE IT'S WORTH IT!)

Ripred & Henry are one of my favorite dynamics to write in AHS 3 and I adore how far they've come and where they started.

That and Henry in general. This is your AHS 1 vs AHS 3 Henry comparison as well (yes, ALL the text here are actual quotes from the books.)

Honestly, Ripred should start to consider paying rent with how much he and his words of harsh but wise truth live in Henry's head 🤣

[noirs-multiverse]

i am a certified gregor and the code of claw hater and thanks to the lovely @haveihitanerve asking<3, i decided to share a google doc of my commentary on it

feel free to leave comments and stuffs lol, i may make proper posts on my opinions abt code of claw and tuc in general at some point in time, but not rn

[cutter-kirby]

thinking about ares and prim. thinking about suzanne collins' doomed by the narrative characters. characters who are set to die in the first book (ares' attempted banishment, prim's reaping) and it being avoided through the main character (gregor bonding to ares, katniss volunteering for prim) and how in the end, the third segment of each grand finale, they die anyway. ares is torn apart by what was, in the prophecy, supposed to kill gregor. prim is blown up by the rebellion katniss was fighting for. they die and it's brutal. it's pointless. and that's the point. thinking about "you'll have to let [ares] go yourself," the plastic toy bat, and "she's dead, you stupid cat," the primrose pressed in the pages of the book. thinking about characters who are fated to die.

[leosdooley]

YOU HAVEN’T VANISHED.

suzanne collins, gregor and the code of claw // the lumineers, in the light // octavio paz, the prisoner // anne sexton, a portrait in letters // 5 seconds of summer, when you walk away // @patientlights // matthew stover, revenge of the sith // brandon sanderson, the final empire

[the-best-url-on-this-site]

You love Ares the Flyer but did you grab the white out and physically alter your copy of code of claw upon first reading his death scene to change it so he lived?

[overandunderland]

Why I love Mrs.Cormaci.

This series is breaking my heart all over again.

[orangeblobby]

I was catching up on @returntoregalia, and it was mentioned that the nature of Mange and Lapblood's relationship is a little unclear in Curse of the Warmbloods. I thought I remembered something, so I checked in the Code of Claw-- and it is confirmed that Mange and Lapblood were mates. Flyfur and Sixclaw (and the others who were lost) are their children.

[originalwinnercheesecake]

The Bane Was Never Going To Be Okay

I have been a fan of the underland chronicles for 16 years. I spend time on its tumblr page, but I don't usually post on it though because I consider TUC on of the more nuanced series I have read and i could day that has not already been said. I made 1 post a couple years ago though where I answered a frequent posters theory about Gorger and twirltoung being siblings with my own theory that the rats Razor and Goldshard were Ripred's siblings (this would make the Bane both Razor and Ripred's nephew). That theory was reblogged a couple times back then and I even saw it referenced recently.

I might be late for TUC month, but I finally thought of some more posts that I want to make another post of. Let's talk about Pearlpelt/The Bane and his relationships with his parents/gaurdians.

He had 7 that I can name.

The first two are his bio parents Goldshard and Snare. We know Snare was at the start the Bane's downward spiral. He was the first to introduce violence, fear, and gluttony to The Bane when he killed the other pups in the litter because the rats were starving and Snare wanted to make sure his future weapon, sorry (not sorry) his son, got all of Goldshards milk. (Unessisarly as Ripred points out that even in those hard times any numbe of families would have taken the extra pups). It is also stated that Snare used to beat The Bane when he was just a pup.

For Goldshard, before the Bane and her other pups, she was in love with Snare. Even among other rats king Gorger and close followers of his, like Snare as an example, were known to be ruthless and bloody monsters. People in Goldshard's life (her big brother Ripred) warned her that Snare was no good and to stay away from Snare. Unfortunately she did not listen. She married him and moved far away from everyone with Snare, to a remote hard to reach, and not often visited corner of the rats land. The other rats in the pack there were probably snares troops, no one to help Goldshard. And once her pups were born she was stuck. Where as Snare saw the Bane as a weapon Goldshard wanted something else for her baby, but wasn't able to get it. When his white coat grew in she tried to forgo his prophetic name and tried to call him pearlpelt, but Snare and all the other rats still called him the Bane, and in her final moments even Goldshard uses the name. She wanted to protect the Bane from Gregor, waking the serpents to sink the ships and eat the questions was her idea.. But when she saw both Gregor and Snare outside the den she looked at Snare: her husband, the Bane's father and abusor, her other pups murder, and she attacks the bigger threat first, losing her life in the process . Her last word "Don't" was the start of a plea for her baby's life. This leads Gregor to conclude she was a loving mother. 6 months later he meets an adolescent Bane, who is already an unstable mess. On page 29 of Marks of Secret when Gregor and Ripred are discussing the Bane and his issues Gregor remembers Goldshard and says this "Maybe if Goldshard had lived" "Maybe he would have been okay". On the next page Ripred replies "But she didn't so we will never know". Well when I was a kid and first reading the books I tried to make up an AU where Goldshard survived her battle to the death with Snare, Gregor and Ares are then somehow able to get both Goldshard and the Bane to Ripred, and the pair live together in happiness, and the Bane never grows into the monster he became... But that is all a fantasy, for more reasons than the obvious this book is fiction, and Goldshard actually died. No actually going over what happened to the Bane's gaurdians and why, well even in a world where Goldshard was able to escape with her baby she would have still likely died, this time at the Bane's paws. The Bane did grow up with love after Goldshard, but it did nothing to stop what he became.

Ripred was guardian number 6. He did not love the Bane. Actually by the time Ripred was forced to assume Gardianship he flat out hated the Bane. (Once again my theory is Ripreds hatred came from a mix of the Bane reminding him of Snare, compounded with Ripred unfairly/rightly blaming the Bane for the deaths of Goldshard/Razor.) But it was also mentioned that Ripred and the Bane had only been together a week. Taking the Bane to Regalia may have been a last ditch effort to get him away from Twirltoung, and the Bane's melt down where he insisted Ripred's "hated him" and kept him "prisoner" "all his life'.. I do believe Ripred when he said he wasn't unkind to the Bane as a pup... This is mostly because I genuinely believe that Ripred did not have much to do with the Bane when it was a pup. I believe that he left Razor (the Bane's other possible Uncle) to raise him, and only checked in from time to time to see how Razor and the Bane were doing and to try and shoot down any ideas the Bane had about becoming a King or carrying on Snare/Gorger's conquest. Ripred mentions he used to have give up food to the Bane during the starvation, but that could be explaned by Razors struggles to provide for the Bane and Ripred wanting to help Razor (whether you believe me about Ripred and Razor being brothers or not, it's clear from Razor's first mention that they had some kind of personal relationship).

But let's talk about Razor for a moment. He does not get enough love or recognition from the fandom, and that's a shame because from what I can tell, despite joining King Gorgers guard at one point (he was likely forced. Even Gregor could tell was ashamed to be there) he seemed like a really good guy. He took the Bane in six months into the starvation, and raised and loved him as his own. Both Ripred and the Bane have nothing but good things to say about Razor as a parent: How kind he was, how much he had loved the Bane, that he tried to teach him survival, and went hunry for him. Razor did his best to give the Bane all the love that Goldshard had, to be everything that Snare should have been as a father.... The Bane repaid all of this by killing Razor. He threw him off a cliff over a crawler carcass. This happened between CotWB and MoS, which means that the rats had control over that river and were eating well again. So the crawler carcass was not the only food they had seen in days or anything. They could have shared it and then gone fishing if the Bane was still hungry. But no, as soon Razor tried to take part of the carcass for himself the Bane attacked his loving father, pushing/hitting him so hard he fell off a cliff and died. Then he had the desparete/dirangged idea to try and conceal his crime by eating Razor. Shudders. To the Bane's credit he did feel bad about it afterwards. When Ripred tells Gregor he cries and tries to say it was an accident, he did not know how hard he had hit Razor. He can also give a (bad and unjustafiable explanation), which is more than he could do for the next two.

Gaurdians 4 and 5 where named Clawsin and Ratriff. They were both attacked by the Bane a week before Gregor met him in Regalia. This leads me to believe they were raising him together and are a mated pair. While we can assume they were both part of Ripred's pack, they do not show up on page with names, and we know nothing about their personalities. But still they took him in knowing what he did to Razor. Knowing how dangerous he was. Knowing that Ripred probably really did not want the Bane in the pack after what happened, they still took the Bane in and tried to finish raising him. Now Ripred reports the two as having been maimed (not killed) by the Bane. When getting into specifics Ripred says that the Bane blinded Clawsin in one eye and ripped off one of Ratriff's forelegs. First shudders again. Secondly while Clawsin might have been able to survive, as long as the Bane's clawmarks weren't to deep and did not become infected; unless Ratriff immediately got some serious web gauss and medical care, they died from what the Bane did to them. Also unlike with Razor the Bane cannot even say why he did it. He cannot remember if they had done anything to him or what the fight was about. He just did it in a fit (reminder he is not a rager) and then they were lying maimed, and he could not stay with them anymore.

I am going to skip over having his army attack Ripred and throw him in the pit, because as established that their relationship was long broken and the pair where at that point enemies in a war. Let's talk about Twirltoung now. She was never the Bane's official guardian, but she had a huge influence on shapping what he became. While we know she was puppeting him and never truly loved him, the Bane thought she did and seemed to regard her as a surrogate mother. When she dies the Bane links her to Goldshard one last time by accusing Gregor of killing her "just like you killed my mother". Snare killed Goldshard though, something the Bane remembered and had had explained to him growing up. And he actually killed Twirltoung moments before, violently and deliberately, ripping off her head because an enemy he hated told him with one sentence that Twirltoung was using him so she could take over, which this notably persuasive rat vitimly denied. Failing for maybe the first time in her life to trick someone. Then the Bane immediately forgot what had happened and made up a fake story.

Twirltoung is the only gaurdian we see the Bane kill on page. But her death mirrors every other one in the Bane's life. It was violent and terrifying, and terrible like all the others. The Bane quickly forgot it just like with Clawsin, Ratriff, Goldshard, and possibly Snare. Last he killed her because he greedily wanted a crown and in a moments decision saw her as a threat to him getting it. Mirroring Razor being killed because he tried to take some of a meal the Bane greedily wanted all to himself. As well as the Bane's littermates being killed because Snare thought Goldshard would struggle to feed her pups, and greedily decided it all should go to the pup with a snow white pelt.

Hunger, greed, violence, loss. All of these hardships and horrors were truly part of the Bane's life from birth to death. Mercy, love, and kindness were there too. First from Goldshard, then Gregor and Ares, then Razor, Clawsin and Ratriff,... Ripred for sometime in-between. But none of it had the effect on him that its givers tried to make. He was lost to the horrors in his life until eventually, he willingly became them. All the good laid to waste.

[emerdoodls]

what if i fuck around and learn to read and write in the code of claw