#the hunger games meta

[timeturnerz]

The Hunger Games, 2012 (Gary Ross) and The Hunger Games, 2008 (Suzanne Collins)

It's so interesting that, from the very beginning, Gale is established as someone who has a disregard for human life, and who does not truly view those different from him as "people." We see this here, where he dehumanises the children Katniss will have to fight in the Games. We see this in Gale's vocal resentment of Madge Undersee, in how he despises her for the privilege she was born with and grew up with.

This "us vs. them" infighting and mentality that Gale falls for (a mentality that the Capitol propagates, and that the Games act as a metaphor for) is one that eventually leads him to kill innocent children.

This thinking is also something Katniss must learn to break out of -- when she grapples with killing her opponents in the Games, who are truly just children, or when she realises "who the real enemy is" at the end of Catching Fire.

But Gale is unable to grow past this. He's willing to kill children (!) who are innocents, who haven't committed any crime other than being born in the wrong place at the wrong time -- just like Madge, who Gale despised in Book 1.

And Gale obviously DOES feel bad about "killing" Prim. But what's worse is the thought that, if it wasn't Prim who died, if it was just some random faceless people, would Gale still care?

I think Gale is a really interesting character whose development is so tragic yet still makes so much sense. It's a shame to see people write him off so quickly without seeing the analytical, thematic, and political value that we can gain by exploring his story and ideology.

[thestarlightforge]

TBOSAS Meta

This started as a couple-paragraphs-long Everlark & Coryo x Lucy Gray rant. It turned into an essay on the politics of systemic oppression and how we illustrate it in fiction, with The Hunger Games and Ballad as case studies. Regardless, I hope others enjoy, lol. This is where my brain lives, now, as I expect it will the rest of 2023. Cheers!

***

It’s been interesting, the last few days, some of the discourse that’s popped up around TBOSAS. FASCINATING political discussions, as I’ve come to expect for a Suzanne Collins release. (#1 in my heart.)

Personally, I always separate books vs. movie canon with her franchise. With the OG Hunger Games, sometimes I felt the films were better—like she got another pass at it and REALLY took advantage, and utilized the hell out of taking it out of Katniss’s first-person POV to develop other characters and the world (still without detracting from her narrative)—while for some details, I preferred the books.

With TBOSAS, though, the book and movie feel almost entirely different to me.

There are MANY shared elements, of course, and I feel either version gels quite nicely with the OG franchise. It’s not even that there’s that many continuity differences—some things cut or altered for time, sure, but the bones of the plot are the same. Both illustrate astute political commentary, Coriolanus’s descent into madness, Tigris’s shift in position on him (foreshadowing her full turn by Mockingjay), and Lucy Gray’s role in his life in both his initial downfall and his defeat by Katniss. The actors and creative team all did BEAUTIFUL work bringing it to life, and I honestly love both versions.

But fans who mainly like the book may be frustrated by the sympathy Coryo garners in the film.

Normally, I’d say this is because the book reveals more internal monologue—and it does. But honestly, one of the things I was most impressed by in this film was how legible the actors’ internal monologues were. It was clear, the amount of work they all did to that end. So I don’t know that it is just more. I think it’s also different.

Book Coriolanus devolves much earlier and more obviously. He starts from the same pressed circumstances and has moments of goodness, but he becomes the villain we know him eventually to be pretty damn fast.

Film-Coriolanus has a much slower descent. Ironic, honestly, given the film has far less time than the book does.

I think as a result of this, I’ve seen discourse comparing beats in his relationship with Lucy Gray to Katniss and Peeta. For example, that beautifully shot/choreographed/performed scene in TBOSAS with him and Lucy Gray on either side of the fence after the bombings that night, where they almost kiss and he asks her, “Is this real? If I’m going to risk everything?” being compared to Peeta’s long game of “real or not real” throughout Mockingjay. Everlark folks (rightfully) pointing out that for Peeta, the refrain is about shared trauma, especially between him and Katniss, and both of them grounding their relationship in mutual trust—while asserting that for Coryo, the same refrain comes from a place of selfishness.

I get where this opinion comes from: President Snow is probably one of the most violent, sadistic, genocidal dictators in modern popular fiction. His relationship with Lucy Gray started as transactional—even more acutely in the book. Nearly everything Book-Coryo does is for his or his family’s personal gain.

But to me, half the beauty and tragedy of the film is this delicious possibility—the hope—they showed us.

THG has always had a strong anti-war philosophy in general, with through-line commentary on showmanship, propaganda, surveillance and performance: The recurrent themes of cameras always bring on them, the arenas and entirety of Panem being a stage/game—and how those things impact authentic human relationships. Everlark hit for so many because of the ways authenticity bloomed out of that hellish, contrived pit. Coriolanus and Lucy Gray’s relationship started out similarly contrived: Thrown together by the politics of the Academy, the uprising, the districts, the Capitol and the Games—helping one another survive. Largely unlike Katniss and Peeta, they both played the game intentionally, to varying degrees. (Personality wise, these four really have almost nothing in common, lol.) Lucy Gray is a good person, both in the end and from her start (unlike the terrorist Coriolanus becomes). But she is a performer. He’s right about that.

So honestly, I don’t see much purpose in reading Peeta’s question as valid while Coryo’s wasn’t. I think that judgment is colored by dramatic irony—us knowing who they each become. But in theatre, we talk about living honestly in imagined circumstances. It’s used in a lot of acting techniques, but particularly for people playing villains. To stay grounded in the truth of it, you have to believe honestly in the imagined moment, not the gestalt; Leslie Odom Jr. was a great Aaron Burr because every performance, he believed in the whole journey, from hope to ruin. Tom Blythe was a great Coryo because he invested in the earnest reality of Snow as a young man, not the devil we know he becomes. And at that point in the story, at the cages that night with Lucy Gray, Coriolanus was honestly grounded in similar struggles as our OG heroes: Trying to provide for and protect his starving family. His family (and the Capitol at large) reeks of privilege, and his prejudices were obviously flawed. But in his developing love for her, he was steeped in starvation, the same political forces as lashed all citizens of Panem, and was clawing his way from beneath just as much Capitol propaganda as people from the Districts—perhaps even more so, given his Grandma’am and how his father died. Because of their given circumstances, politics bled into everything—but eventually, so did feeling, and they had several moments of genuine bonding, trust and connection which the actors invested in beyond their political need for each other. There’s a constant push and pull: Holding hands at the zoo for the cameras was political; her reaching for his hand in the arena visit was less so. The first “Stop treating me like I’ve already lost” in front of everyone was wit-soaked survival, while “Please don’t let me die in that arena tomorrow,” near-whispered and with hands held between them where the camera would struggle to see, bled into real vulnerability. Saving him from the other tributes in the cage-ride to the zoo was about survival; risking her life to go back for him when the arena was bombed was at least a mix. Her motivations for singing in her interview are complex—perhaps guilt that a “rebel” attack nearly killed Coriolanus, his advice she’d get the most money that way—but I feel strongly that a non-zero amount of her was motivated by wanting to demonstrate that she trusts him, which for her is even higher-prized than love. And I also feel that, after the hospital and her “final performance”—leading up to their near-kiss at the zoo—Coriolanus scoped out the arena (and ultimately took all those risks to help her cheat the Games) both because he wanted the Plinth prize, in theory, and because he increasingly desperately wanted her to live.

The waters between them were thoroughly, legitimately muddied—which I believe was intentional, that constant tension between authenticity and politics. And as much as he was falling for her, Coriolanus saw that Lucy Gray was just as clever and good at crowd-work as he was—maybe better.

So to circle all the way back to this Everlark comparison: Given the absurdly multilayered situation, is it really that selfish or unreasonable he would check in with her during that moment through the fence? That this child—wrapped in oppressive patriarchy, violence, starvation and propaganda—would ask for reassurance before he was willing to be vulnerable, or to potentially risk his family’s lives?

Some artists are hesitant to engage with the humanity of “villains,” their origins, because they feel humanizing them excuses them. In real life, I get this: Second chances aren’t always the answer, and people need to be held accountable. But isn’t it more powerful storytelling to demonstrate the corrosive nature of all systems of oppression in our fiction, to show how they can corrupt even those who try, than to condemn people before they’ve even had a chance? Isn’t the beauty of Lucy Gray’s whole thing that everyone starts out good, and it’s our job to choose to stay on the right side of that line?

And when President Coriolanus Snow finally chokes on his last rose, wouldn’t it be a more satisfying victory if we imagined him as a real-feeling person—full owner of sixty years of horrifying choices—rather than a cartoonishly evil cardboard cutout?

Book-Coryo has a more obviously manipulative/evil streak, much earlier on. To make it plain: He’s an ass, and his “love” for her reads more like obsession. But my favorite aspect of the film (and I feel one of the most compelling) was how it illustrated that these systems of oppression can make tragedies of almost anyone: All but those at the very, very top. Suzanne’s anti-capitalist politicking—how classism turns everyone below the 1% against each other, where the “upper middle class” (doctors/lawyers/actors) is vilified to the poor as a red herring while a handful of robber-baron CEOs amass almost all wealth on the planet—strikes again. She, Francis Lawrence, the film’s creative team and these actors came together to put tragically human faces on that struggle—how hard it is to stay a good person amidst intense, violent, systemic oppression.

But none of that sings quite as true if you go into it having decided that Coriolanus was evil in his bones. The stakes are so much higher, richer, otherwise. If his love—for Tigris, for his family, for Sejanus, and yes, for Lucy Gray—was, or became, authentic.

It’s not a descent into madness if he’s already mad. Or, as he put it in the original Hunger Games film: “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.”

[lesbianlarks]

potentially hot take that I will definitely live to regret posting BUT im genuinely flummoxed by the sort of moral outrage I see floating around the tags about how some people aren’t enjoying THG in the correct way because they just don’t (!!!!!) understand (!!!!!) that it’s (!!!!!!!) about child murder (!!!!!!). I’m sorry but we all understand that it’s about child murder. The child murder is on the tin in GIANT red lettering. It’s the most overt, extreme element of the premise and as such, Suzanne Collins uses it as a tool for asking more complex moral questions about trauma, warfare, selfhood, vengeance, governance, identity, resilience, etc. She uses it to explore multifaceted dynamics between characters who are framed as good and characters who are framed as bad and many characters who are somewhere in between. The fundamental question of the narrative isn’t “is child murder evil?” because that’s an incredibly basic question that we all know the answer to and it’s frankly ridiculous and insulting to our collective intelligence to imagine that we need to reiterate that every time we discuss the text.

THG is effective as speculative fiction because it engages with themes and ideas that are relevant to the world we live in — income equality, the violent acceleration of resource extraction, celebrity culture and the 1%, the commodification of people’s bodies and identities via social media, the increasing normalization of global war. But it is, and I cannot stress this enough, not real, and it’s in fact a very extreme exaggeration of reality. Just because SC was engaging with some questions about the ethics of entertainment does not mean we are the same as one of the fictional watchers of The Hunger Games if we enjoy diverse elements of the series. That’s not how fiction works, or at the very least it’s not how fiction must work, and I reaaaaaaally don’t think it’s a useful way to engage with this text.

I’m already cringing at the thought of how this discourse will continue as the TBOSAS release gets closer because TBOSAS is in many ways an even knottier text than the original trilogy, especially when viewed with the sort of reductive lens that boils any nuance down to the most basic sort of morality test.

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

[caesarflickermans]

Thinking about it, Haymitch's Games being mentioned as backstory in Catching Fire--as opposed to, say, during the rescue videos in Mockingjay--feels like a very intentional idea to establish parallels and connections to the rebellion during the 75th Games.

Haymitch's rebellion during his Games started and ended with the forcefield. It was the reason why he won.

Then the rebels used the forcefield as a way to finally end the Games. Hovercrafts get in and out all the time. Was there truly a need to destroy the forcefield or was it a televised tool for Plutarch's plans?

Haymitch winning the Quarter Quell is the reason Katniss and Peeta tell themselves that they are warranted in watching it--to be prepared for what to expect in the 75th. But in truth, Haymitch could have won any Games; his horrors would have been just the same.

Except, the inspiration for rebellion began with a Quarter Quell and it ended with a Quarter Quell.

When Katniss and Peeta watch Haymitch's Games, they comment on how everything is deadly in this arena. The plants, the animals.

But the 75th arena is literally a death trap in the shape of a clock. There's monkeys that want to kill you, there's fog, birds, beasts, water. Everything wants to kill.

What I'm getting at here is that Haymitch and Katniss do not only parallel each other in character. I think Haymitch unintentionally kicked something off that Katniss unconsciously continued.

And I think it is the effect they have had on others. I can very much see a young Plutarch Heavensbee being impressed at what he is seeing on screen and attempting to replicate that. We know that Plutarch has been attempting to do a rebellion from within, and we know it isn't a plan that came out of nowhere: We know he has been at it for the past ten years at least.

So that prompts the theory: Was Haymitch the unconscious instigator of it all? Does it all come down to Haymitch who inspired a spark in certain people that caught on fire when Katniss comes around?

That maybe, what ended up making Haymitch's rebellious actions be unsuccessful was that no one aided in the spark becoming a fire. And that certain people realised it for what it was, and hoped to see it replicated one day. Just that this time, the spark could be controlled.

[mexicancat-girl]

It feels so weird to me that people's take-away after reading/watching The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is that Sejanus was a fool and deserved what happened to him.

Sejanus was a traumatized, suicidal teenager that was ostracized for most of his life. His father essentially moved his family to a rich place where everyone hates their guts, selling out their own people in the Districts. Sejanus wanted to kill himself in the Arena because of his great sense of justice and his grief over one of his FRIENDS from childhood dying so cruelly while televised to the nation. He wanted to make a statement and show that not everyone agreed with the cruelty of the government.

Sejanus being reckless makes perfect sense in that context, but because Coriolanus is the protagonist--who has little to no empathy for others and is a kiss-ass to the fascist government despite living in poverty himself--it makes it seem like Sejanus is a moron that deserved his death... He didn't.

He was a child who trusted the wrong person, considered Coriolanus his best friend and the only one who understood him, and Coriolanus' need for power and control had him ratting out Sejanus and getting the boy executed.

Sure, Sejanus could've tried to 'play the long game' and change the system from the inside... But everyone around Sejans despised him because they still saw him as District. They would constantly talk behind his back. The only reason people tolerated the Plinths was for their money.

Sejanus had no allies or friends, minus Coriolanus. How was he supposed to make any sort of true political change when he's a child of a family who most of the Capitol elite hate on principal?

That's partially why he went to District 12, because he couldn't stand being in the Capitol anymore and wanted to create real change in the districts themselves. He went there because Coriolanus was his best friend, who saved his life before, and was the only person he could trust.

He was 18 years old and he cared for people. And I'd much rather root for someone who was willing to stick up for his beliefs and help others, even if it got him killed, than someone that wholeheartedly supports the regime of a government that rules with an iron fist and regularly slaughters children.

[incorrect-tbosas]

don't think about cashmere and gloss being reaped the first time, each time being terrified to lose a sibling and then be elated that they lived. don't think about them going into the 75th games, knowing that this time only one leaves, and the other might have to kill them.

(especially when i'm sure BOTH cashmere and gloss would have been forced into sex trafficking and the other used for leverage if they tried to rebel)

[darklingswhore]

I recently saw a post that I now cannot find, which argued that rather than the American working class/middle class people representing the Capitol, we are actually District 1. I honestly think that take is genius. We've been conditioned to think that we have more in common with those in power than we do with the rest of the world but that's all an illusion. We wear cheaper versions of their clothes, consume their entertainment, and work for their benefit. I think it totally checks out. We're relatively privileged of course but not as much as we might think.

I'd like to expand on that and also point out that Panem's military forces primarily come from District 2. Where do U.S soldiers come from? The American working class. People who see it as an honor, a family tradition, or a way to pay for college. Hell, people have historically been drafted into the military against their will or have joined on their own to get better placements under the threat of the draft. So I'd argue that most people in the United States are Districts 1 and 2. We think we're special, we think we're being taken care of but we're as trapped as anyone else.

[medusdeeznuts]

I think about Johanna Mason all the time

What do you think happened to her, after everything? Where do you think she went? She had nobody, Finnick was the last person close person to her, she had Katniss but Katniss had Peeta and was building a life

I think about how the Capital robbed her of connection to water, the one thing she’d still have to feel close to Finnick, she wouldn’t even be able to go to be with Annie and help raise his son

She makes me so sad, for such a fierce, loud character, to disappear so silently. She deserved a soft ending, and I just hope in her own way she got one

[fatheriimaginedyoutaller]

Re-reading again. Love the undercurrent theme of class and race solidarity: The black market, Rooba giving up the Goat for Katniss, everyone steeping up to help Gale get out from sure death at he hands of the Peacekeepers, district 11 giving Katniss bread.

And YET Katniss is so wallowing in self doubt that she's like "People deal with me, but they're genuinely fond of Prim." Which might be truth for things like selling goat cheeses and medicine to the Upperclass people from 12. But the Solidarity people from the Seam have to each other is enough for me to write a dissertation.

Suzanne. The WOMAN that you are.

[lesbianlarks]

I have to admit I find a lot of Peeta takes to be a bit boring and reductive. “He was such a good boy” “he was waiting so patiently for her all along” “he never pressured her for anything” because I feel like it oversimplifies Peeta’s dynamism and agency in the text and also ignores some of the more interesting things SC was illustrating through that relationship.

I don’t believe that Peeta’s feelings for Katniss originally come from a healthy place. I’m not saying he’s gross or terrible or that I don’t empathize with him, just that he’s not entirely well. Because of his trauma or a combination of factors, his sense of self is tied to someone he doesn’t really know. His romantic fantasies about her are so intense that he actually creates/contributes to creating a reality where she must play along with them. Whether or not you think it was necessary to save her life, the fact remains that he chose that story for them, not her, and she has to live with it. Then he falls for his own con.

When he pulls away from her after the first games, I think it has more to do with his shame and self-reproach than anger at Katniss, but that anger is real enough that the capitol can use it as part of his torture. In the end, he has to unlearn and completely relearn how to love her outside of his projections of her — both negative and positive. Projections which started when they were only five years old. He literally has to figure out what is real outside of his own head.

Of course, it’s terrible for them both, but I think it’s part of what makes it’s actually possible for them to become life partners. Not that Peeta had to get hijacked, but that he was eventually going to need to challenge his projections either way, which is a pretty relatable thing. It’s an essential challenge point of any first-love or young-love relationship — why most of them don’t last. And that’s why Katniss x Peeta feels earned to me as a long term relationship, as a happy-ish ending. Not because he was just waiting patiently and perfectly all along, but because he actually did the work.

[daisybeewrites]

i’m sure someone’s already said this, but the GENIUS of the lyrics "You asked for a reason / I've got three and twenty / For why I Trust you"

three and twenty. twenty three. there twenty three other tributes in the arena, and coryo got lucy out.

[caesarflickermans]

this hunger games timeline spans all three books: from the reaping day to the final chapter of mockingjay (minus the epilogue).

for this timeline, i have used several markers to determine when what is happening, namely: the prequel information that the reaping happens on the fourth of july, the information that the victory tour occurs in the middle of the previous and upcoming games, once again the reaping happening on the fourth of july (75th games), then boggs' statement about being a week away from september after the bombing in district 13, and some indicators of season changes throughout all three books.

whenever i was unsure and made estimates, i have marked so in the section of further information.

please understand that this timeline was not initially designed to be posted online. rather, i re-read and made notes for my own writing purposes, put a lot of work into this and figured that, maybe, other writers or general thg blogs might enjoy having this. therefore, excuse the many mentions of caesar and plutarch. no, actually, some more love for both of them. if you appreciate this, send me plutarch and caesar pics thank you :p

in the same vein, you are more than free to make a copy or download the timeline to make your own adjustments and own notes 😘 if there are any glaring errors, i'd more than appreciate letting me know, so i can adjust them for everyone (and myself ahaha)

link to the google sheet

[triassictriserratops]

I just saw your posts about Mr. Mellark, and how the sub-Reddit was talking about. I just checked it out, and omg everyone sharing their own personal experiences about how they have their own Mr. Mellark as a parent. And your post is spot on. We can understand Mr. Mellark and his circumstances, but it doesn’t meant we have to stay silent and not about his failure as a parent.

People often forget Peeta is a victim of child abuse, with an aggressive parent and a complicit father. Crying. I feel so bad for his character :(

Thank you for your message and sharing your thoughts, Anon! 💚🧡

I have so much compassion and understanding for Mr. Mellark. He is clearly a very kind man caught in an extremely unkind world. Katniss views him as incredibly kind and this is something the reader is supposed to understand about him as well.

He is someone who will bring Katniss cookies before she is sent to her death and who promises to keep her sister from going hungry. Someone who will look at a boy with 42 slips of paper in a reaping bowl and accept an unfavorable trade so that boy can have good, fresh bread that morning. HE HAS A GOOD SOUL.

The tragedy here is that he IS kind. He IS caring. But the framework of his life, his country, his marriage, his socioeconomic status all work to create this scenario that leaves him incapable of defending his sons in his own home. And this is unbelievably sad.

Good people can do bad things or make bad choices. And good people can sometimes choose silence, which is still an action. Silence is still a choice.

Mr. Mellark deserved better in his own life, but he also OWED better for his children's lives. Both of these are true.

[thestarlightforge]

Been looping “Can’t Catch Me Now” all weekend.

I just love Lucy Gray so much. Coryo is fascinating, and it was a delight to watch his (and Tigris and Sejanus’s) backstory come alive after I had such a strong hunch about it, reading/watching Hunger Games as a kid.

But back then, I was still deeply closeted, living with family across the South, intensely a tomboy. I loved Katniss—her masculine presentation and emoting, her Autism, her being a big sister first and always, her family trauma, her complete lack of a Southern accent, all still amidst constant oppression. She didn’t fit, didn’t understand, and usually felt intensely uncomfortable with the roles the world tried to force her into—the same as I did. But she beat the system anyway, seemingly by sheer force of will—and she got her love story, broken and unintentional as it was. I needed her.

I don’t know that I was ready for Lucy Gray back then. Someone powerful, feminine, utterly unafraid of her own voice. A girl who sounds like she’s from Appalachia and embraces it for all its gritty beauty, repurposing it in the spirit of rebellion. Katniss’s equal and every ounce as scrappy and brave as she was, but a person who found that strength in her art and her words—wearing a dress made out of rainbows. And while Katniss led with love, too, Lucy Gray wears it so much on her sleeve. She doesn’t regret it, I don’t think—not even in the end. And she escapes oppression by trusting and staying true to herself.

I think I would’ve been too afraid of Lucy Gray to love her as a kid. Katniss was who I needed then—her lesson that people like me can make it. But as I prepare to face this big next chapter of my life, I’m grateful for her. Grateful I’ve grown and healed enough to embrace a woman like her. To find strength in a girl who changes the world with her songs, her heart, and the voice of the mountains.