war-in-time

[war-in-time]

Something I haven’t seen talked about as much in regards to sotr is the world building. Like yes the characterization was god awful, but one of the things I disliked most about it was that it didn’t really do much to explore or build on the world of Panem. I’ve always loved the small details that Suzanne Collins has included to allude to the fact that Panem is dystopian future America and make it feel different but also uncomfortably familiar.

Things like the fact that past arenas become historical sites that Capitol citizens vacation to and participate in re-enactments at. Even tbosas (which I definitely have some issues with) at least builds up the world of the Capitol in Panem in a new way from the trilogy, like the fact that the first arena is implied to be a football stadium or something similar is great. She has typically done a great job of making us aware it is America but like in an uncomfortable way sort of similar to how Margaret Atwood builds the world of Gilead in Handmaid’s Tale.

But sotr was just missing that to me. I guess she sort of tried to explore things like the tunnels under the arena with the whole water tank thing and encounter with the game makers. And we find out that books aren’t common in district 12. But idk it just felt dull in comparison to the other books set in this world to me.

I’m gonna answer these two together because they’re essentially the same topic for me. The hunger games are the central conflict that most of the books (outside of Mockingjay) are focused on. It’s kind of hypocritical of Collins to say she wrote the trilogy as a commentary on how people are desensitized to violence in todays media, meanwhile she continues to actively promote that same violence for two more books when the story was already completed.

I don’t blame anyone who wants to see more arenas being explored. I’d personally love to see an arena that takes place in either the ruined city that was mentioned, or in a tundra environment, because: humans are naturally curious creatures and we like learning about topics like survival in extreme conditions.

Think about every person that had ever climbed Mount Everest; they knew it was inherently dangerous and there was a very high likelihood of dying when making the decision. Or think about how popular true crime shows/videos/books/movies have been for years. People are naturally curious, especially if there’s an element of danger involved; so why wouldn’t they want to know about this huge part of the hunger games world that’s inherently dangerous?

The games are a part of world building for starters. We’re told through Katniss’ perspective that once the games are done the arenas are preserved and people vacation there and partake in reenactments. The people getting the absolute most amount of propaganda in Panem are the people in the capital and learning more about the games could be a deep dive into how people within the capital have been able to disassociate human beings from numbers on a screen.

On world building, we really don’t know anything about Panem outside of the capital from Snow’s pov, district 12 from everyone’s pov, and a bit of 13 in the last book. We don’t know anything about any of the other districts and how maybe some arenas might have been designed with specific districts in mind. Like any time they make an arena with a large body of water taking up most of the arena they kind of have to be setting up the tributes from district 4 to win right? Because the only thing we know about their district comes down to fishing.

We also don’t know anything about the war and how bad it could have possibly been for all sides if the districts agreed to the hunger games as an acceptable form of surrender willingly once the war had ended. There is so much world building that is never actually built and it’s frustrating to want to know more about Panem while being shoved backed to district 12 every single time.

Outside of knowing about Wiress’ arena we don’t get any new work building, not really. Theoretically we could pretend that the tunnels under the arena are ‘new’ world building but they really aren’t. We already knew there was a network under the arena straight from book 1 because that’s where the tributes are launched from. The only other piece of work building I can remember that sotr actually added was saying that until the 25th games, they continued using the same arena that we say in bosas, but even that feels like a stretch.

The arenas are an absolute integral part of the world building in the hunger games, no matter how much people want to pretend that; “if you want to see more arenas you’re just like the people in the capital.” I can’t stress this enough, but wanting to know more about a fictional world (even if it involved death) does not make you a bad person.

[war-in-time]

Do you think SOTR was a ghost writer? I've seen the theory floating around and I don't believe it. I just think she dropped in quality.

I have seen the theories, and I can see why people would like to imagine that an author they used to like couldn’t possibly be responsible for the mess that is sotr, but I’m not one of them. The writing quality did take a swan dive between the og trilogy and bosas (which has its fair share of potholes and retcons but it’s not painful to read it) to sotr. But there could be a lot of things to explain the drop in quality.

1) It was a rushed project. Where that means Collins rushed through the writing process itself or if it was rushed through editing to get it published at least a year before the movie is supposed to come out.

2) The editor that worked on the og trilogy might not have been the person working on sotr, or there simply wasn’t one. People really don’t appreciate just how much editors do in the publishing process, it’s about more than simply spotting mistakes in grammar and spelling, but also making sure the narrative makes sense.

3) Sotr was a first draft, straight to publishing.

4) Since a movie is coming out within a year of publishing it’s possible Collins is actually taking tips from the screenwriters. Or it is a collaborative work.

5) Collins just doesn’t care anymore but since the book is attached to a huge franchise no matter what she publishes will sell. Especially if it’s a popular character and the book is laced with the fan-service despite how little sense it makes narratively.

I personally think it could be collaborative since the book reads like it’s meant to be a screenplay, but also that she just doesn’t care anymore. Back in 2015 when the last Mockingjay movie came out, Collins wrote a letter saying she was done with the series and would be moving on to other projects. Clearly that didn’t happen because the series makes money.

For someone who made a trilogy to comment on how people are desensitized to violence in media, she’s done a hypocritically good job of profiting off of violence in media.

[war-in-time]

Just saw this ask someone sent to another account I follow and would love to know your take/response/analysis.

I’ll link it, but essentially it brings up this defense of sotr and the cf tape being propaganda that people have been using which is that it makes sense for the Capitol to lean in to the image of Haymitch’s games we see in cf. People are saying it’s a mirror of the berry stunt rather than a parallel, an issue of disconnect between intention vs perception. The cf tape portrays Haymitch’s games as being an accidental act of rebellion because he survived by being smarter than the capitol and making them look stupid. He chose to use the force field but he didn’t intend it as an act of rebellion necessarily. His action was deliberate but the affect was an accident. People are saying sotr also portrays an accidental act of rebellion because him using the force field was literally an accident. The action and the affect were both unintentional (again no agency)

And people say that the capitol edited his games that way because the persona he built up as the rascal meant the audience would assume it was an act of rebellion even if that wasn’t his intention he was locked into the narrative due to people’s perception. Whereas with the berries katniss’ intention was to outsmart the capitol but her persona as the girl in love gave her and peeta a chance to twist the narrative away from the truth because people could reasonably perceive it as an act of desperation out of love. I’m in the same boat as anon that I guess it technically works with that explanation but something about it still feels off and I can’t tell exactly what it is.

And like I’m talking just this explanation of why the capitol would have to portray Haymitch the way they do in cf like this defense people use to make it make sense ignoring all the things that indicate the cf plot is true and the assassination of Haymitch’s character because of it etc. Like I want to break it down at a narrative level and see if it actually doesn’t work from a plot logic standpoint and why or if that’s just my bias showing because I read that explanation and it technically makes sense but it feels like it shouldn’t and I can’t pinpoint it. Anyways this is way too long I’m sorry here’s the link to the original ask I saw

https://www.tumblr.com/gudvina/779688252649226240/curious-about-your-thoughts-on-the-take-that-the

Also I’m sending a separate ask with a link to the post I’m assuming this anon is referencing that has the original argument (I don’t want to put that person on blast because that’s not the point of this lol)

—I’m not going to go into this but every time Haymitch gets called a “rascal” it fills me with an unimaginable anger. He was never a rascal but a straight up asshole. His literal description in CF for his interview is: Snarky, Arrogant, Indifferent. Which all lines up with how Haymitch acts outwardly to everyone in the og.—

I really don’t think it’s simple to think about and it’s not a simple answer to give either.

So we know for a fact that the hunger games get edited down into a 3 hour runtime by the capital, that’s just a fact. The people in charge of editing what’s roughly 2~ weeks of content down to 3 hours have their work cut out for them. They always focus on the victor from the very start of the film, meaning their entire interviews and most of what they did in the games are not only included but completely focused on. We know the capital cut out the part where Katniss covered Rue in flowers, but they did keep the portion where she sang to her, not that the re-run matters because everyone watched the games live and they would have seen the footage of her doing both regardless. But the point is they do pick and choose what goes into the cut.

So by that extend first of all we should have been shown Haymitch’s entire interview—it’s stated that Katniss and Peeta “get to see one full exchange between [Haymitch] and Caesar…”(CF.197) even if the whole thing isn’t written out, because Haymitch is the victor—in the re-run edited footage. His interview would never be one single line because everyone knows the interviews are longer than that and we’ve already been shown prior proof of how the process works with Katniss and Peeta.

As for Haymitch’s forcefield kill, while we know it was 100% accidental in sotr it was not in CF. Haymitch goes to the edge of the arena because he’s specifically looking for something that could help him win/survive. The exact quote is “I don’t know. But maybe there’s something we can use,”[Haymitch] says (CF.200). He lead the career tribute out there on purpose because it was his last shot at not necessarily winning but definitely surviving in that moment. Both him and the career girl are badly injured and bleeding out, Haymitch does start to convulse on the ground after the axe is thrown. While sotr portrays this as Haymitch’s legs giving out instead of him planning to drop, it makes little narrative sense; because right after the career girl dies and after his ‘knees gave out’ he was able to stand again to blow up a generated? Make it make sense.

Haymitch’s actions were definitely intentional and it would have caused a stir in the districts even if not in the capital itself, because it would have given other tributes the idea of “oh I can just do that if I get reaped now”. The capital citizens probably would have looked at Haymitch and thought “what a clever boy,” like people do when their dog performs a trick. That’s why Haymitch is then used as an example to all the other victors from that point (with his family being killed for the forcefield) to remind others like Johanna and Finnick that they need to stay in line and not stand against the regime.

Realistically the scene isn’t comparable to the berries but it did have an impact on the games going forward. In the 74th games when Katniss starts getting too far from the other tributes (or too close to the border of the arena) they set the forest on fire so she’s forced to go back towards the others. That to me sounds like the impact of letting a tribute get too close to the border of an arena, which showed that Haymitch did impact how the games were viewed/played; the capital (mainly Snow) didn’t want anyone using their machines to their advantage.

Haymitch wasn’t necessarily intending to use the forcefield as an acting rebellion but survival, he probably didn’t think his family would be killed for it. Katniss on the other hand was a full on rebellious move because “they need their victor” and she was not about to fight Peeta after he’d thrown his own weapon away. Katniss was definitely thinking of survival, she didn’t plan on becoming a symbol of rebellion, but in her own internal monologue she was doing it to spite the capital. And I’m not pulling from sotr at all, that’s just how I read the scene in CF. I genuinely don’t believe Haymitch was trying to actively rebel during his games but he was definitely looking to survive, he probably would have tried to find another way to survive if he knew what it would end up costing him.

I think this is where people are getting lost in propaganda really. It doesn’t matter what the game makers showed, or what the districts/capital people were shown, what matters is what the game makers saw. Realistically there is definitely a lot missing from Haymitch’s games in CF, but not necessarily from him but rather form everyone else in the arena. We know the re-run has to focus on Haymitch and from what we’re showing in HG the film is usually pretty accurate to what happens in the arena, even if parts are left out. Things have to be cut, it’s like adapting a book to a movie, majority of things that aren’t important to the main plot are going to get cut but the most important parts (like the person who wins the game) is kept in almost entirely.

Just because the re-run of the game is 3 hours long, doesn’t mean that people in the capital haven’t already seen his entire games. So re-editing it to make everything look accidental or to exclude that Haymitch was (in sotr) present for multiple deaths like Beetee’s son and Lou Lou’s, doesn’t make sense. They would have seen him running with Lou Lou’s body in the arena, and him trying to bat away the squirrels that swarmed Beetee’s son (I can’t remember how to spell his name and don’t feel like searching it), but the editing in the re-run throws it all out of order and he was now magically gone from all the deaths? The days are shown out of order which Haymitch comments on in sotr because it makes no sense, and it doesn’t make sense for a capital audience either because they would have just watched the games and been confused by why so much was changed.

There’s so much about sunrise on the reaping that just makes no narrative sense and it’s honestly hard to try and justify what Collins did in this book and try to tie it into the rest of the series because it doesn’t work. I don’t see a way that anyone in the capital would look at Haymitch after the forcefield kill and think ‘rascal’ but I can see them looking at him and calling him “arrogant”. The more I keep thinking about sotr the more my head hurts from trying to make sense of all the potholes, inconsistencies, and characterizations.

—as a last note, is Suzanne Collins really expecting me to believe that nobody in the capital that saw the tributes entrance with the chariots had a camera??? That the capital people are capable of not spreading gossip in five seconds flat about an accident happening? That they don’t have phones to instantly call people and tell them what they saw? There is no reality where Haymitch challenging Snow with a dead girls body would not be front line capital news. It doesn’t matter if the cameras stopped rolling or if people were drunk; they were still there, they still saw it, and I would be willing to put money on at least one person in a huge crowd of Capital people would have a camera to take pictures with.—

To summarize: I don’t think Haymitch was trying to rebel in CF, he certainly had a plan but I don’t think the plan was to show up the capital; it was definitely to survive and get back to his loved ones. Whatever the Capital citizens and District people thought of the move in the end wouldn’t matter because Snow was the one that gave the order to have his family killed, and instructed the game makers to never let it happen again.

[war-in-time]

I’m almost 100% sure that Suzanne Collins did not reread her own books before writing sunrise on the reaping but she did rewatch the movies. There are so many similarities it’s actually kind of astonishing.

There’s a scene in Catching Fire where Gale straight up run-tackles a peacekeeper that was about to beat up an old woman on the ground. I swear it’s exactly the same scene as where Haymitch gets ‘reaped’ in the new book. The similarity of so striking there’s no way it was a coincidence.

Haymitch in the movies is also a lot more openly loving towards Katniss right from the first movie where he’s complementing her and agreeing with her choices/actions. In the book he’s trying to reassure Katniss that it’s too late into the games already to have her replaced for shooting at the game makers, while in the movie he straight up tells her “nice shooting sweetheart”.

In the book version of CF Haymitch scolds Katniss for suggesting getting married and her not knowing why Peeta got upset about it, he tells her that even if they are expected to get married her proposition was calloused and the worse way to go about it. Meanwhile in the movie he agrees right away and just says “yeah that’s a good idea, it’ll wow everyone”~paraphrasing here that’s just what the tone of the scene was changed to.

During Gale’s whipping scene Haymitch is a lot more assertive and the new peacekeeper recognizes him after Haymitch basically calls him out for messing up Katniss’ face. He doesn’t even look at the guy before checking on Katniss first. But in the movie? He seems scared of the new peacekeeper instead of being mad that he whipped Katniss’ face. The interaction is a lot more negotiation where the capital has all the power instead of Haymitch making it know he’s not to be messed with.

Another new reasons I think sotr Haymitch is more similar to movie Haymitch then his original book counterpart.

[war-in-time]

Hello! I’m curious what your thoughts are/what you make of the whole potato thing in sotr? It felt like such an odd motif/symbol to highlight and use so heavily to me. Like idk it just felt a little silly and at odds with the tone sometimes. Like yeah there was the whole battery thing and the night light which people have said is meant to be an instance of showing humanity which is fine I guess and then people have been pointing out that katniss is a swamp potato, but idk. I can’t tell if it just wasn’t done super well or if I’m missing something and I’d love to hear your take lol

If there was a deeper meaning to it outside of “potato battery” I’m sorry to say I didn’t see it. At all. The only thing I kept thinking about the potatoes as they kept coming up, was how many times Haymitch just ate them raw. Raw potatoes are extremely detrimental to your stomach because your body can’t break them down properly, but also their composition isn’t exactly healthy.

Raw or undercooked potatoes contain resistant starch, which is difficult for the body to digest and can result in gastrointestinal distress: bloating, gas, vomiting, diarrhea, and in severe cases if the potatoes have enough solanine, it can lead to poisoning.

Maybe there was some kind of symbolism there, I don’t know. I was too focused on the fact that Haymitch was actively giving himself stomach issues teetering on trying to kill himself. Also just… I don’t know why he didn’t try digging around for a potato in the arena instead of what he did, why use one of the few items of food he had that he knew wasn’t poisonous for a battery??? Why waste food like that in an arena without even trying to find something else?

The whole potato thing was just frustratingly stupid to me. Please do not eat raw potatoes.

[war-in-time]

i'm afraid of the person i'll become when sunrise on the reaping releases

[war-in-time]

Hey I just want to let you know that although I quite like sotr, I have seen very little of what you have said about it to disagree with. It has several breaking-suspension-of-disbelief moments, significantly retcons Haymitch's character, and its messaging in the back third of the book is didactic in a bad way. I still like the book for its strong incorporation of The Raven, and for the characterization of Maysilee, Beetee, and Wyatt.

I hope if she does a 6th book it will be less focused on the events of the games themselves.

If you like the book that’s commendable especially if you do see the flaws. And absolutely not hate with what I’m about to say, if you like the book keep liking it; nobody should stop you from enjoying anything even if it’s flawed. I do agree that Maysilee and Wyatt were both very well done characters and I kind of wish we could have gotten a book with them as the main characters and maybe gotten to see more of what actually happened in the arena though their perspectives.

I will disagree with Beetee though, I felt like he was only there for exposition. As a personal aside I also thought he was a lot younger in the original trilogy, roughly around Haymitch’s age, not 16 years older. I think there was a line where Beetee said he was reaped the year Haymitch was born which is just wild to me, he didn’t read as 57 in CF. But I know this one is definitely just a personal thing.

I also felt like the Raven was overused in the last chapter and I started skipping it the longer it went on. It actually got to the point of feeling like Collins was trying to fill a word count. I get it’s meant to be a portrayal of Lenore being constantly on his mind but it was just doing too much.

If there is another book (and I’m honestly hoping there won’t be at this point) it needs to be far away from district 12. We need some real world building instead of the same story rehashed again. Every single pov character that we’ve gotten in all of the books is either from district 12 or somehow ends up there. It’s so narrow to have this huge world and we know next to nothing about any of the other districts or what happened with the first rebellion, or how everything was divided into districts.

Is there a possibility of a good book still existing in this series in the future? Possibly but I don’t think Collins heart is actually in it anymore.

[war-in-time]

my personal view on sotr: as a book it came out, to me, as a way of collins to write something that would've make us cry, or feel. the neverending cameos, the love story between haymitch and lenore dove .. nothing more than those booktoks "tropes". she went for a cash grab and was just checking boxes i guess. i wonder if she ended up with haymitch as her pov because he's a beloved character and a covey for the simple reason that the fandom went almost nuts with the revelation of snow's hidden love life. who could have thought! the evil guy had a situationship with some girl from the same district as our sweetheart. what irony. i think it worked - it was enjoyable, added some context and clues about the trilogy and the character in general. but this trope to work twice, but in a heathcliff/catherine + romeo/juliet way? she could have done it without ruining haymitch's character forever and instead giving us a couple with the same attributes and the context we needed, because haymitch and lenore dove didn't do much except for annoying me with the costant declarations of the love they shared for eachother every two pages. hell, what about something that happened in the dark days for istance? braveheart (1995) comes to my mind. a guy that clinges so much on his gf's ghost because he doesn't have anything else in the world (for me it makes sense in war times to cling to whatever connection you have at the moment, something that gets you going), not even a family, a ma and a brother? but first we get to know the girl, their dynamic; we see them falling in love and then her dying; we don't need their love shoved down our throats to make it more believable or real because we see it and feel it with our own eyes and heart. all i can't think of is that sotr went straight to my head, it didn't even touch my heart as the og trilogy did. annie cresta, finnick odair? didn't know that well about their love story or how they fell in love but cried anyway when finnick died and cried when annie had their child (and annie probably has as much screen time as lenore dove, more or less). lol even star wars managed to make a well made prequel movie that did not end well but made all of us bawl: rogue one. but suzanne collins couldn't do the same? it doesn't even feel like the same writer to me. where's all the mystery, all the subtext, the things we all could speculate about? there's so much to write about thg universe, lore that she could have expanded and created away from our beloved and already known characters; what she does here with sotr not only fells flat but also lazy. everybody keeps bringing up the world outside of panem (canada perharps?) but she never let us see what's there, what kind of world they live in. also: both the covey girls are telling us that panem wasn't always like the one we know and, before the dark days, they were - apparently - free to go wherever they pleased. and you don't use this information at your own advantage? there's so much we don't know about this country and the people that lives there and ugh! all she chose to feed us are stories i could've find on my own on ao3

This book was 100% a cash grab no matter which way I look at it. Everyone (minus myself) has wanted a book about Haymitch for years and a lot of people from my shaky recollection were upset when Bosas came out because it was not something they had asked for. So if Lionsgate wants to make a new Hunger Games movie or Collins has run out of original ideas, it’s not really a surprise this became a thing.

It is an emotionally charged book, that is the main comment I’ve seen people who aren’t critical of sotr making on it, and they’re really not wrong. There are scenes that have a lot of emotional punches that I’ll admit I did feel something towards. Granted I did listen to the audiobook while driving and credit where credit is due, the narrator did an amazing job conveying the emotions across; becuse those same emotional beats did not land when I read the physical copy. They were very bland and just kind of there.

Side note: if anyone hasn’t listened to the original trilogy read by Tatiana Maslany, they should. The way her voice trembles when she’s reading Katniss on the verge of tears has made me cry while listening to it.

You also mentioned booktok tropes and I’ll admit I hadn’t thought of that when I was reading sotr. That’s a genre of books I stay very far away from because a lot of them are self published and I’ve seen a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes in them. Something that should not happen in a book you’re putting out into the world; take some pride in your work and edit it. The one single book that I did read that I know people on booktop loved read very similarly to sotr: a very shallow romance where it’s horrendously oversaturated and very over the top. The writing is also very simple and the author absolutely hold the readers hand for the entire time to make sure you don’t miss the messaging.

See I never cared much for bosas, I’ve read it once, see the movie, haven’t touched it since. Was it interesting to see Snow’s descent into killing everyone that stood in his way? Yeah it actually was. But it also made Snow look like a psychopath from a very young age which I’m gonna be honest I don’t get from Snow in the og trilogy. That can be explained away but one book being in his head and the others not, but it also opened up the start of plot holes. There were a lot of covey kids in that book, and somehow in less than 40 years there’s only three covey in district 12, and another 24 years after that there isn’t any and nobody ever mentions or talks about them? I don’t know seems like trying to force a concept that doesn’t work into a story.

You wanna know what did work? Adding Padme Amidala into the Star Wars prequels. As far as I’m concerned they are the only prequels to anything that I can think of that work. Yes some of the writing, mainly dialogue, in this movies was horrible but the overall story they were trying to convey in the prequels was solid and it fit into the universe without contradicting the originals. Apart from one scene in the originals where Leia says she can remember her mother there aren’t any major contradictions (and the medichlorians or whatever the hell they called them), all the loose ends are tied up by killing everyone off so nobody can ask “what happened to all the other Jedi,” becuase we saw order 66. And as cringy as Padme and Anakin’s love story was, it is believable, we actually get to see them falling in love instead of just being told “were in love, here’s us saying we love each other over and over again,” like how Lenore and Haymitch do from his pov alone.

You also mentioned Rogue One which is one of my all time favourite Star Wars movies. You get to know the characters for such a short amount of time, but in that time you get to learn their personalities, how they interact with each other, their motives, and ultimately they sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole universe. When Jon and Cassian hug at the end when they’re on the beach and they’re seconds away from death? You feel that personally because they had real development and the director made sure by that point in the movie you’d be mourning their loss. Something that Collins barely tried to do in this book and it fell flat when she did attempt it at the end with Lenore.

Finnick and Annie is a great example too. I don’t know anything about Annie outside of how she survived her arena and the fact that she’s got full ptsd from it. But, I do know how Finnick acted when he was separated from her and the sheer joy when he got her back, and that wasn’t something I saw when reading sotr.

I think it’s a real shame that we got basically no new characters in this book. I liked Maysilee and Wyatt, a lot and I think it was a shame to introduce two actually well written new characters and not give them their own book as the main characters. Imagine how good a pov from either of their perspectives would have been? Of course that wouldn’t happen because Collins is allergic to new ideas but we can dream.

It’s really a shame to have this huge world and know virtually nothing about it. That being said I did assume Canada was part of Panem because of where the Capital is located in the Rockies, and the Appalachian mountain region is also pretty far north in the states, and everyone always mentions that district 13 was further north then 12. I think I remember there being a map made for one of the movies but I don’t think I’ve ever actually looked at it, and just going off of the books description Panem sounds bigger then just the States.

I think if Collins were to ever write a book that I would be willing to give an actual shot to, it would have to be away from all of the characters we already know. Far away from district 12 because we don’t actually know anything about the other districts outside of: wood, farming, fishing, etc. I did mention that I’d like to see a Hunger Games narrated by a tribute that wouldn’t survive the games, it would be interesting to have one with at least two pov characters to make this happen, but again, I don’t think Collins will ever write anything original again.

Haymitch was a horrible person to choose for a book because of two very simple reasons: 1) we know he spent almost his entire time in the arena alone so we never actually get to see anything happening in his games, and 2) to remedy that problem she could only do so by adding plots that made no sense and diminished the character greatly, including everything he once represented and showed in the originals.

Lastly, I’ve read many a fanfiction better planned out and executed then sotr, but most people that write fanfic do so for fun and not to make money off of it.

[war-in-time]

Omg I remember him saying that his family and girl were dead in the books but i completely forgot that he straight up says it was due to the force field. That’s another way I know Collins wasn’t planning this from the start like why at this point would haymitch not tell katniss about what actually happened. Why wouldn’t Plutarch or betee or anyone mention any of this? I just don’t understand how people can say this enriches this world of thg

This is exactly why I’m so bent against sotr. We know that Haymitch wouldn’t lie to Katniss, not in this scene. She’s too vulnerable in this moment, and so is Haymitch while they’re both listen to the abuse that Finnick was put through. If there ever was a separate or additional reason for Haymitch’s family and girlfriend being killed, he would have said so in this scene.

Haymitch had no reason to lie or withhold information from Katniss in this moment, which is why I hate the retcon in sotr’s epilogue passionately. Collins tries to retroactively say that Haymitch told Katniss everything after the war was over but it’s so shoe horned in because she can’t change the actual story that we already have for Haymitch. It’s like putting a bandaid over a dame that’s completely broken and saying don’t worry about it, it’s fine.

It’s not fine. It doesn’t add up. I don’t care if people like this book or not, I just wish they wouldn’t completely close their eyes to what we already knew about Haymitch and his story, and nod along to everything that Collins is trying to change about him.

And it doesn’t make sense that nobody that was part of the ‘rebellion’ in sotr wouldn’t mention anything even in passing to Katniss about how “we tried a few times before, once with Haymitch, it didn’t work.” Prequels do actually need to adhere to what happens after them which is why most of the time they don’t work.

I had one person say that killing Haymitch’s family for the forcefield was too extreme and to that; clearly it wasn’t because that’s exactly what we are told happened directly from Haymitch. They also asked why Katniss’ family wasn’t killed for the berries if Haymitch’s was killed for the forcefield, which… I feel like I shouldn’t need to explain? From what I can remember it’s made very clear in the books that the capital citizens adore Prim because Katniss volunteered for her. Killing Prim would cause an outrage. Sure Snow could have killed their mom, but considering that Katniss very clearly isn’t close to her I don’t think it would have sent any message at all.

It took years for people to start noticing the problems with the Harry Potter books, and almost none of it happened until after the fans turned on JKR. I wish we could just criticize a book 1) without getting attacked for it and 2) without the author needing to become public enemy number one before people realize authors make mistakes and those mistakes are not hills to die on defending.

[war-in-time]

I have a fair few questions in my inbox that I’ll try to get through in the near future, but I also have a project that I’m working on thats unrelated to The Hunger Games discord. I promise I’ll answer everything and if anyone wants to add more you’re always welcome. I don’t want anyone to feel ignored, I’ve just gotten busy when I thought I’d have a bit more free time.

[war-in-time]

one of the things that stood out to me while reading sotr it's its inconsistency throughout the whole book. why haymitch didn't get killed by snow? he was not as valuable as beetee, so i don't understand. the kid clearly had an agenda of some sorts that was showing, so what was the reason? collins gave us none. and all i could think about while reading his time in the arena was: how much wasted potential we got here. i don't know, i guess i was waiting for some kind of torture (snow loves it) like the birds in cf when katniss and finnick had to hear their loved ones screaming in terror, something that said: my guy, i'm watching your every move and if you wanna play some kind of twisted game i'll show you how much of a good player i am myself. instead.. we got nothing much apart from haymitch being some kind of pawn in plutarch and beetee's big flop of a plan (and the milk). and i'll say it: who else recruits some average kid for a rebellion plan? y'all don't even know him! treason and betrayal are meaningless words to you? haymitch could've easily sold plutarch to snow at any given moment but as mayselee put it, he doesn't have a backbone (or was this suzanne trying to sell us the idea of haymitch having morals after all? this and all the newcomer stuff). worst of all, plutarch himself gets away with it while haymitch loses everything - the man's not even remorseful or helps the naive child he recruited after the games, he just says something in the lines of: yeah i'm sorry shit happened we handpicked you but turns out the odds were not in your favor .. lmfao are you kidding me! and then what happens in the trilogy? haymitch once again tries to have faith in plutarch even though this means the possible sacrifice of the only two children he's, let's say, fond of. and what happens once again? haymitch loses someone he cares about - peeta - and i can't recall a moment of tension between haymitch and plutarch that katniss witnesses or hears of. sure, it could've happened off screen but really? if i was him i would've strangled the man and side eyed him the whole time. wasn't after all his fault if his ma, brother and love of his life got killed? because he made him believe he could some change, even when he himself didn't believe in it? poor haymitch, in the end he ended up just like gale: used and then tossed away like he was nothing, blaming himself for something he had a hand in but was not entirely his fault

This won’t be the answer you want but Haymitch didn’t get killed by snow because he had plot armour. We know that Haymitch is the victor of his games so there was never going to be any real tension in the book regarding his safety. That being said; if Collins wanted to write about Haymitch doing more during his games instead of just walking towards the edge of the arena, she could have done so without adding in a subplot that would get any normal character that didn’t have plot armour killed.

If she did want to keep the very stupid “blowing up water tank subplot” she needed to write the conflict from that point on in the book a lot better, stronger, and overall more believably. This is actually where I’m hoping the screen writers for the movie will do a better job, I’m hoping they’ll see that Haymitch needs to be under attack from this moment onwards because they definitely won’t cutting the water tank destruction from the movie.

Haymitch needed to be chased by mutts as soon as he got out of the tunnel from where he blew up the tank. When the control room got flooded it should have had consequences on the whole arena. I genuinely thought that the volcano would blow because of his interference, but if I’m remembering correctly it didn’t happen until a day or so later. It is wasted potential because we don’t even get to see any real lasting consequences of his actions in the arena. Not just some trees bleeding but the entire arena actually going wonky. Clearly this was all a very badly written subplot in concept and worse in execution.

I think I’ve brought this one up before but you’re right, why would two rebels recruit a random teenager they don’t know? For all they knew he could have gone up to Snow and been like: “hey~ I just had two of your people tell me they want to blow up the arena, if we can make some kind of deal that gets me home alive I’ll tell you who they are.” Haymitch has no reason to trust Plutarch or Beetee, and they have no reason to trust him. Haymitch wasn’t even a rebel according to sotr, Lenore was. She was the only reason he even thought about doing anything to break his games, and it would have been more organic for him to think of his own way to do so instead of getting enlisted to basically be a soldier inside the arena for the rebellion. Something like, oh I don’t know; using a forcefield he shouldn’t know exists to kill his opponent?

I know I’ve mentioned the Plutarch thing before too, because it’s not believable. Why would Haymitch ever trust Plutarch with Peeta and Katniss’ lives in the 75th games if Plutarch is by extension responsible for Haymitch’s family and girlfriend being dead? Especially since according to sotr he never lets go of Lenore, so Collins expects us to think that Haymitch is not only hanging onto a grudge but also helping the man that got his family killed? Both of those can’t be true at the same time, not with Haymitch’s attitude in CF and MJ towards the rebels.

Haymitch does care about Peeta and Katniss, that’s not even a debate, he might show that care in a somewhat crude manner usually but they’re probably the only two people he thought he’d get to hold onto because victors are relatively safe from the capital. This is the scene right after Katniss realizes Snow is using Peeta against her:

“Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. I reach out to him and say something like his name and he’s there, holding me and petting my back. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay, sweetheart.” He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob.”(MJ.163).

So if Haymitch lost Peeta because of Plutarch again, there would have been a huge fight, and that’s not something that Collins can retcon in now because the books are all out, the movies are all done, there is no way to change how Haymitch acted towards Plutarch in either CF or MJ. We don’t see any tension between Haymitch and Plutarch, or anyone else in the rebellion for that matter, when they’re all in D13. And remember Haymitch was forced into sobriety while there so if he’d been screwed over by the rebellion at 16, and we’re expected to believe that he’s still constantly thinking about his dead girlfriend, he wouldn’t bring her up and throw that in anyone’s face? When Haymitch tells Katniss about snow killing his family in MJ he isn’t bitter, he isn’t lying like sotr implies he is, and he tells Katniss very flatly:

"No. My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field," he answers. “Snow had no one to use against me."

"I'm surprised he didn't just kill you," I say.

"Oh, no. I was the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems," says Haymitch. "But he knew he had no leverage against me."

"Until Peeta and I came along," I say softly. I don't even get a shrug in return. (MJ.172-3).

This is part of the reason why retconning so much of what we know about Haymitch in sotr doesn’t work. We already have all the information we needed about his man, directly from him. If Haymitch was the example in MJ it makes no sense for Beetee to be the example in sotr, because clearly it didn’t work? It’s frustrating, and there are so many problems with sotr existing as a prequel that I don’t even have possible solutions for how to fix it without retconning majority of sotr to realign it with canon again.

It’s genuinely going to be easier for my mental health, and anyone else who doesn’t care for this book, to just ignore its place in the canon.

[war-in-time]

How do you think the movie adaptation will be handled? Do you think it'll be better or worse than the book?

That’s actually a really difficult one to consider, I suppose it’ll depend on who they hire as the screenwriter, who the director will be, and what they think of the book themselves. All of the movies in the franchise so far have been kind of unpredictable with their adaptations from page to screen. There are moments where a scene in the books was a lot better, like Katniss screaming out Peeta’s name without thinking in the first book when the announcement is made that there can be two victors. It was a genuine and raw moment that gave us the first true indication that she might possibly have feelings for him, even if she wasn’t sure what they were yet.

However the scene where Peeta gets electrocuted and Finnick brings him back in Catching Fire was better in the movie, again because it feels more genuine the way that Katniss reacted and how well Lawrence played hysterical in that scene.

While I do see faults with the original four movies (as does the director, who has since said he wished he hadn’t split mockingjay into two parts) I also see faults with the books. Those are my thoughts on the hunger games movies, sometimes great and sometimes awful, but I think ballad of songbirds and snakes was an overall poorly made movie. There was so much in the movie that was cut out and it felt like we were constantly getting rushed thought plot points. It’s the only time I’ve thought a book should have actually been split into two movies because of how much Collins packed into it. Not that any of what she added was truly necessary but the pacing in that movie was a result was atrocious.

Sotr, as quite a few people on here have already pointed out, reads more like a script than a book. I don’t think it ever should have been a book to begin with, especially with the lack of effort that was put into it. There are definitely things that will stay in the movie that I can guarantee right now, because they only exist in the book to give us more action and those are: Haymitch’s forced reaping, him blowing up the water tank, and him trying to blow up the arena a second time at the very end of his games. Those were all very shoe horned into the book clearly to give a director/screenwriter more to work with in a visual media, especially since most of those things make no sense in the context of the actual story.

I do feel like it might actually get handled better in a movie. All of the action in sotr came across as very flat and superficial, none of it had any real impact, and so long as whoever’s working on the scripts has actual talent the dialogue might be better in the movie too. There’s going to be a lot of cuts, there always is, and for once I’m hoping it’ll be for the best.

Now do I think the movie will actually be good? No probably not. Remember we were never shown Haymitch’s games in the catching fire movie, and (I might be wrong on this one) but Haymitch never once mentioned his family being killed in the mockingjay movie. So the screenwriter could theoretically do whatever they wanted with Haymitch and retcon him again because it would make no difference.

I think the movie will probably be more watchable than the book is readable, but I really doubt it’ll be anything that blows audiences away. If we compare bosas to the og series, it almost flopped, by comparison it did. Bosas made $350~ million for its entire theatrical run, HG made $300~ in its opening weekend. And as much as I don’t like bosas either, I do think it’s still better than sotr.

Will things get changed? Absolutely. Will the movie be good? Only time can tell.

[war-in-time]

I’m so glad anon brought up the rigged reaping idea. I find the idea of rigged reapings so odd. I feel like the issue with the discourse on this, and a lot of hunger games things, is that people refuse to hear out or acknowledge that the way Suzanne Collins portrays the themes in the book are not the only way to do it. And the message she’s choosing to send and highlight isn’t the only thing that can be taken away from the situation.

When I’ve tried to have this conversation with people before, I don’t even try to argue about it I approach the situation as if their belief or theory is true and just try to explain that even if that is the case that doesn’t mean I have to find it more compelling than the alternative and they just can’t wrap their mind around it.

Going back to the og trilogy I’ve seen some people posit that the reapings are rigged in the sense that the capitol somehow picked prim so that katniss would volunteer (the VAST majority of people acknowledge this is horseshit) but it then being people to other theories. A lot of people posit that the reapings are rigged in the sense that the capitol has the power to pick the tributes if they want since they’re the sole controller of the hunger games, but they don’t do that rather what they most often due is rig the reaping for demographics to make them as entertaining as possible, sort of like how they look for certain traits when casting reality tv to make high chances for it being as dramatic as possible. So some people say they picked prim but never meant for katniss to volunteer.

I personally feel that while this isn’t out of the question, it’s just less compelling. Sort of like how I feel about sotr and the rebellion recruiting haymitch in rather than him and the other victors being drawn together by their shared trauma caused by the capitol. I think that there can be something interesting in a government that sets up these games where kids get randomly picked to fight to the death but they’re lying about it being random, but I find it more interesting that they would keep their word and the kids are random, that they truly think what they’re doing is justified and this is a punishment for the war, that they can take any child and make entertainment out of them.

Idk this is too long already sorry 😂 but yeah idk TL;DR while I don’t think rigged reapings are out of the question there’s something almost more interesting in what is being implied if they are completely random. I wish people could understand that we can acknowledge that Collins may choose to covey a theme or message but there are different ways to do it that can be just as interesting. (You talked about the reapings already though so you don’t have to comment on any of this if you don’t want that anons ask just got me rambling lol)

I did already have a reaping question yes, but I don’t mind going a little further into it. I in no way shape or form think that the capital is looking at a list of kids from every district and picking out specific kids to be tributes. Could they rig the games to pick a specific age groups for the tributes by district? That one is actually pretty plausible but it only works if we ignore sotr. Maysilee and Louella were different ages so I think this one would have been a fully blind draw, otherwise picking two 13 year olds or two 16 year olds would have probably been a bit sus.

If people have theories about the reaping being rigged by all means they can. There’s nothing in the text that completely proves or disproves this to be the case. This one is fully and 100% my opinion but I just like the idea that the reaping is truly impartial. That and I’ve worked in an environment where gambling occurs every day so I do truly believe in just sherry luck (good or bad) when to comes to draws. The system is definitely rigged in a sense against poorer kids from the worse districts that need tessera to survive so I don’t see a need for anything further than that really.

This ones really just up to how you interpret the capital and the games. I still don’t like how Haymitch was ‘reaped’ but I don’t like majority of sotr so oh well.

[war-in-time]

This is a lot of words to completely misunderstand the point. The fact that you think Haymitch’s character wasn’t rewritten to suit Collins’ new narrative tells me all I need to know. The issue isn’t that sotr expands Haymitch’s backstory—the issue is that it contradicts what we were originally told in the Trilogy. You’re acting like people are mad because we got more depth when the problem is that the ‘depth’ doesn’t line up with what was already established.

It doesn’t matter whether the audience saw Haymitch blow up the arena or not—the Game Makers did. And that alone would have been enough for them to react. If Amperit (or any tribute who defied the Games) got their own brand of mutts—like Maysilee and the other girl did when they killed Game Makers—they would certainly do the same for Haymitch. The Capitol doesn’t have to show the tributes killing Game Makers; if fact that mostly likely would never shown something like that happening. Even if Maysilee and the other girl were killed for it later, the districts would see them as martyrs for spilling capital blood, and the Capitol would not want that kind of thing public. Snow would never allow such disruptions in his control. Why would he? The kid that actively tried to sabotage the games (Haymitch), seen by the public or not, wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the chance of being a victor.

This leads to a major issue I have with how sotr handles Haymitch’s story. The poisoned milk, for example, was nonsensical—it was too on the nose and felt like a poor attempt at adding complexity to a scenario that wouldn’t work. There’s no way the Capitol audience would stand for a sponsor gift killing a tribute; that would be outrageous interference in the games that looked like it came from the outside. If Snow was willing to kill Haymitch for blowing up the arena, he would have sent mutts after him—just as we’ve seen in previous Games. This is not an opinion; it’s simply how the Capitol operates. Haymitch’s death would have been treated just like any other tribute death, and Snow wouldn’t let him escape the consequences of disrupting the Games in such a blatant way. He actively sabotaged the Games, something the Capitol simply cannot allow to go unpunished.

I think it’s important to note that you’re mainly drawing on sotr, and that misses the larger context established in The Hunger Games series. Haymitch was always portrayed as clever and strategic—his forcefield kill wasn’t an accident. He planned it. He led his opponent to the forcefield, hoping they’d throw their weapon, making it a calculated move. This was his plan all along. But in sotr, this is portrayed as an accident, which contradicts Haymitch’s established intelligence and tactical mindset. That’s the problem I have: sotr fundamentally changes his character by retroactively making his actions seem less intentional, when they were clearly designed to be strategic. It’s a retcon, and it undermines the intelligence Haymitch displayed in the og trilogy.

“Sotr makes it seem like Haymitch only ever cares about the others in the arena because they all agreed to be allies, and not because he actually grew to like a person but knew there was no way they’d both make it back alive.” Is what I actually said so maybe finish the paragraph next time. There was no reason to rewrite all of Haymitch’s personality when he already had one that showed he cared about people, that was the point. We know he cares about Peeta and Katniss, that was always a part of his character but he never went up to them and said “I’m gonna be an asshole now guys but I don’t actually mean it” like he did in sotr. He was always someone who cared, but in his own way—gruff, cynical, but deeply invested in the people he chooses to protect. His actions always showed that he cared; we didn’t need it spelled out for us. His actions spoke volumes about his loyalty, and that’s what made his character so compelling. Rewriting him to be more overtly emotional doesn’t align with the character we knew. He was gruff, cynical, but he always cared. We didn’t need him to explicitly say it; it was clear in his actions.

I’m not going to rehash all my original points because I know we’ll never see eye-to-eye on this. But using sotr as the foundation of your argument, especially when it doesn’t align with the established portrayal of Haymitch, seems misguided. The og trilogy and sotr don’t align smoothly in their characterization of Haymitch. That’s my main concern here.

you’re so right about people not knowing how to handle conflict and i wish they did, people act like collins can do no wrong but if they could see past that there are some really interesting conversations to be had about this book and what does or doesn’t work from a literary perspective. but they aren’t willing to hear it out in a mature and respectful manner.

anyways what i wanted to say and get your opinion on is that i get collins maybe wanting to make a point about how long rebellion takes and how much trial and error there is but i kind of hate that it came at the cost of haymitch’s story from catching fire, like there are so many other ways to write about themes of propaganda i hate that we had to take a story with really interesting and impactful messages about rebellion and the cruelties of the capitol and say it was actually all propaganda, it doesn’t make sense to me.

haymitch not purposely acting as a part of the rebellion but rather just trying to survive (like katniss and peeta with the berries) makes for such a compelling message too. like i think him outsmarting the capitol using his own intellect rather than because he was following instructions from the rebellion and thus the captiol punishing a kid who wasn’t trying to dismantle them but was just trying to survive and make it back home alive hits so hard why erase that? she could’ve conveyed these themes with a different characters story, why assassinate haymitch like that? i also think there’s something powerful in his catching fire story about how him and maysilee broke the alliance but he still went after her without obligation.

i’m convinced that what we see in catching fire was what she originally intended his story to be and that she came up with the events of this book much later. it just frustrates me that she wrote haymitch’s story with such compelling ideas and messages only to then with this book say the capitol made that all up. like haymitch has always been my favorite character and while i hate that she took away his intellect and edge i actually hate that she took away all the meaning behind how his story in catching fire played out more.

Alright I will go into the propaganda aspect and why none of it works. Let’s start with Haymitch in Catching Fire: everything that we learn about him and the 50th games seems believable to how Haymitch had been characterized up till that point. During his interview: “Haymitch shrugs. “I don’t see that it makes much difference. They’ll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same””(CF.197). That way of thinking is shown to align exactly with how Haymitch views others and what he verbally says he thinks of them throughout the original trilogy, remember he was not impressed with Katniss or Peeta. In fact he was completely dismissive of them until they both showed that they had a will to fight, he didn’t exactly respect them after that but he did show a real interest in them. Which is the same thing that Haymitch did in his arena from what we were showing in CF, he went off on his own from the start and only after Maysilee saved his life did he see the benefit of having an ally.

One of the key differences that I think was stripped from Haymitch in sotr is the fact that he cares about people, in his own silent way but he does care. Haymitch and Maysilee splitting up in CF made sense and didn’t need any further explanation; they were nearing the end of the games and almost all of the others were dead, they didn’t want to end up fighting each other. It’s a simple reason and we really didn’t need anything more, but then we’re shown that Haymitch did care about Maysilee more then just a person he had allied up with. He ran to her aid when she started screaming, even though he didn’t have to, they were no longer allies but he still cared about her. Sotr makes it seem like Haymitch only ever cares about the others in the arena because they all agreed to be allies, and not because he actually grew to like a person but knew there was no way they’d both make it back alive. Hie entire ‘Nobel hero’ act towards the end with him genuinely willing to die so a different tribute could live was just so… undeserving? We know nothing about the girl, I can’t even remember her name, and Haymitch knowing that he still has a family back home doesn’t even try winning to get back to them.

The forcefield incident was 100% the reason why Haymitch got punished by Snow, becuase come on lets be so realistic; if he destroyed a part of the arena he would have been killed in seconds for doing so. Why would Snow let Haymitch keep playing the game for another 5~ days after he tried to blow up the arena? And then at the end of sotr Haymitch didn’t have a plan to use the forcefield, it read like a complete accident and his victory is a coincidence instead of a clever use of the arena’s capabilities that he knew were there. I can see Haymitch’s family being executed for using the forcefield, but I can’t see Haymitch not being executed for the water tank.

So the propaganda message doesn’t really get shoved down our throats until the very end when Haymitch rewatches the games with Caesar, and I do mean SHOVED down our throats because it was about as subtle as a brick to the face. Haymitch physically tells us that everything has been altered because Collins forgot that it’s show, not tell, and told us everything. (As a side note this is why I hate Lenore Dove. Everything we ‘know’ about her has been told to us and we never get to see her doing any of the things she supposedly cares about.) Haymitch said while watching the re-run that he doesn’t recognize the person he is seeing on the screen and I for one agree with him, because I did not recognize the Haymitch I knew and loved in the original books once in sotr. So Collins just wanted to use propaganda as an excuse for why Haymitch’s personality is so drastically different in the chapter from CF, but its not that simple. His games in CF line up exactly with who Haymitch has been shown to be as a person for the entire series. I’ve seen people try to blame Haymitch’s alcoholism to explain away why he’s so different between the two books, but how did he somehow build all the brain cells he clearly possesses in the og trilogy that were lacking in sotr from being an alcoholic? Sure his personality could pleasingly have changed but his intellect wouldn’t. There was also no need for a propaganda ‘message’ because it doesn’t convey anything we don’t already know about that games, the capital, or propaganda as a whole.

Messaging in books and movies should never be so heavy handed because it implies that the audience is stupid and isn’t able to pick out hints and clues from the text to figure out the message, it comes across as demeaning and insulting. Especially when the ballad of songbirds and snakes does propaganda surpassingly well. The games were loosing traction and nobody wanted to watch them, so what did Snow do? He propagated it. He sold the tributes and the games as an active participant experience for the people of the capital and it worked, the loved it and bought into it. Propaganda by its definition is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Which is what the hunger games are and have always been about in universe. They are a tool to remind people about the war and to keep everyone divided. Selling the tributes is a form of propaganda and it’s not something new to the series.

What are Katniss and Peeta doing for their entire games? Propagating their relationship because it gets them sponsors. Later in CF they have to keep up the image, spreading more falsehoods about their relationship, just to stay alive. Sotr was not the first hunger games book to feature propaganda but it was actively the worse use of it, because propaganda from real world experiences is usually sublet and plays on peoples emotions to get them to believe the falsehoods. What happened in sotr wasn’t propaganda it was erasure of information, which are two very different concepts that do not correlate together in the way that Collins is trying to portray them.

The games we see for Haymitch in CF were 100% the original vision and it’s very clear to me why she did not stick to it; because we already know what happened in his games and it’s boring to read the same thing twice. So she added a bunch of stuff and rewrote Haymitch (and Snow, because neither the Snow we saw in bosas or the og would be ranting about his high school crush to a tribute or making rookie poisoning mistakes) to make the story feel fuller, but it came at a cost to already established lore. I think sotr could have been exactly the same as what we were showing in CF but it shouldn’t have only been his games. The original concept could have been entertaining and original if she wrote only a portion, literally like six chapters at most about the games, and then everything else about his life afterwards and the next few years of tributes. I know why the book is the way that it is, but it doesn’t make it magically good or excuse it for being poorly written. Personally I never wanted a Haymitch book because I knew something like this could happen, which is the same reason I don’t want a Finnick book, neither of them work because we don’t actually care about the games themselves do we? Sure 48 kids is an interesting concept for a game, but it was barely used to its full potential in sotr. What I think people were actually more curious about was Haymitch’s deterioration, which we got in a half asssed way, because we knew he spent majority of the game itself on his own so we never would have gotten to know the other tributes properly regardless. But let me ask you now, what would you actually want to see: Finnick being in the arena and winning the games, somehow as a 14 year old despite the fact that we know he’s from a career district and it would be unlikely that nobody volunteered for him? Or what happened afterwards with Snow selling him as an escort and Finnick eventually finding love with Annie, maybe seeing how he gets pulled into the rebellion because he has a lot of good reasons to be in one? I know which one I’d pick and it will never be the one we get if it does happen.

As for the rebellion, I think we could have gotten a good buildup and set up for the early rebellion but again I don’t think it could ever be Haymitch, or at least not the way it was portrayed in sotr. The thing with rebellions however is they are unpredictable in their nature. They could take a few days to a few years to start. Katniss and Peeta almost killing themselves and almost leaving the capital without a victor is actually a very believable and frankly powerful spark to start a rebellion, as it was meant to be. I don’t doubt that the victors have all been talking between each other for years before that and contemplating an uprising, but the way it happened in sotr is laughable. Nobodies dies for trying to take down the capital: not Haymitch, not Beetee, not Mags, not Wiress, not Plutarch, and Snow knows about the whole thing. It’s so shrouded in plot armour it feels suffocating as a story, because there were no consequences.

[war-in-time]

Just found your blog! I don’t have a question, just wanted to say I love your mini essays and the fact that you actually think critically! Thank you for answering the questions being thrown your way and having mature well thought out responses, it’s refreshing after having been scrolling the sotr tag for a few days LOL

Thank you and I’m glad if anyone is enjoying my mini essays because I do love writing them out, and I’m not trying to start any fights with anyone.

It took me a lot of learning and unlearning habits to get to where I am and being in environments where you need to keep a level head while dealing with very angry people does help. I find that the calmer you are when approaching someone who’s looking for a fight they tend to dissipate when they don’t receiving the response they were looking for.

I’m not saying I’ll convince anyone of anything with my approach but I do think people listen better when there is no hostility. It’s worked for me in the past and I’ve changed my views on a lot of topics after having real and calm discussions with people that held opposite opinions to my own.

I still stand against arguing people online because it’s just not good for your mental health. There will always be people completely dead set on their views and nothing that you say will ever change that. I personally have a very biased opinion on the last of us show, I hate it. Not because it’s a bad show—I’ve only ever watch snippets of it—but because they filmed it on my university campus and I was late to an exam because they kept us locked inside the building while they shoot scenes. I know there’s people that love the show, I’ll never be one of them because I don’t want to be. I want to hold my stupid little grudge because it makes me feel special, so I do understand why people are so set in their beliefs. (I have played the game and it is an amazing story, I do recommend for anyone that likes found family stories.)

What I can’t stand I seeing people attacking and insulting others for having different opinions, especially on a book. I’ve checked a few blogs that are posting in the sotr tag and any individual in their 30’s should be disgusted with themselves for acting like a toddler when someone doesn’t agree with them. Some of these blogs are extremely vile with how they talk to people and I would hope people older than me would know better and wouldn’t be bullying anyone else, but I guess they don’t.

People also blindly accepting everything in a book and thinking the author can do no wrong shown narrow mindedness. It’s weird and concerning that they’re unwilling to question any of the information being presented to them. Even books, movies, shows, and games I love dearly have problems and it’s weird to try and ignore said problems, worse yet when people defend said problems.

[war-in-time]

I know people keep asking you things and I’m sorry if it’s getting annoying obviously feel free to skip this question, you just always respond with such detail and maturity it’s refreshing honestly lol

I just saw a video of someone saying they don’t like the addition of the Covey in the prequels they thought that Lucy gray and Lenore dove felt like manic pixie dream girls and that the covey felt kind of just one note which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but all the comments were tearing this person apart and saying that it makes them a colonizer to say they dislike the covey because they’re indigenous coded and based on Romani people. What’s your take on the addition of the covey, and then this situation?

I don’t take extreme issue with the Covey I think there are other things about the prequels that are worse. I do wish Lucy Gray and Lenore Dove felt more developed and distinct from each other. For Lucy Gray you can make the excuse that we’re learning about her from snows perspective and he has idealized her and only thinks about her in terms of himself, but then Haymitch treats Lenore Dove almost exactly the same. I feel like you can acknowledge what a group or character is meant to represent and still acknowledge that maybe the execution wasn’t done very well especially when the author isn’t of the culture they’re representing? Idk to me it feels like this comes back to people acting like SC is above criticism.

Authors are not gods, they are in fact willingly sharing their work with the public and part of sharing a story is expecting people to analyze it. Be it good or bad, that’s the reason that universities focus on critical thinking when studying literature. Nobody is above or below being critical of any work.

I think the covey are far too simplified as a concept and the way they’re actually represented in the books. Sure you could say they’re Romani coded but if you’ve also studied Native American history they can fit into many different Indigenous groups that also tend to have nomadic lifestyles and are very family oriented. It takes a village to raise a child is something that every Native person I’ve ever meet shares a sentiment with and they have very close familial ties. I’d also like to note that I currently live around the Canadian Rockies and the university that I went to is built on Treaty 7 lands. I’ve had the privilege of being able to see a portion of their cultural practices and what they are still able to do in today’s world when they have been confined to a single plot of land.

All of that being said what we do know about the Covey does not properly line up with what we do know about both Romani and Native groups.

1) Romani people are known for being nomadic yes, but they also intermingle with people from the areas they travel through which is why they always look so diverse. Romani people are also most heavily associated with living in Europe so if we are to base the covey on them solely, then by extension they would have ancestors that came over from Europe to North America at some point and then started intermingling again. Most Roma groups are actually settled and do end up staying in communities that they like, meaning they don’t stay nomadic forever; but they’re not forced to stay in one spot, they choose to.

2) If the covey are based on Indigenous people why make Lucy Gray so adamant that her people aren’t a part of district 12 when everyone else in the seam is also by the books standards, Indigenously coded? Why add a second layer of segregation to a group of people that are already marginalized and make the split between them even further. There are also no cultural practices that the covey perform, even something as simple as smudging, that tie them directly to any Indigenous practices.

Neither of those two groups line up with how the covey are actually presented in universe. The characteristics of the covey includ: musicians, naming their children after poetry and colours, and feeling superior to everyone else around them because their life style is better. A portion of that last one can be somewhat excused in bosas because it was all form Snow’s point of view and he was trying to convince himself that it was okay to fall for Lucy because “she’s not district, she’s special, she’s covey,” so from his perspective he’s very bias towards them to try and justify his own feelings.

Lenore Dove does not get the same grace because she is literally ‘not like other girls’ personified, only we know Haymitch isn’t a classist asshole from the capital so he isn’t making up excuses for why it’s okay to like Lenore like Snow did with Lucy. Lenore is ‘not like other girls’ because: she has geese that hate everyone and have apparently attacked people? (Normal geese aren’t inherently dangerous, and Canadian geese are more dangerous but only during mating season when when their eggs are hatching so Lenore’s geese are just assholes), she paints anti capital slogans in town but doesn’t tell Haymitch about it despite being ‘the love of her life’, she hates Maysilee because she has a pet canary and she doesn’t deserve her mockingjay pin because reasons. She’s we don’t actually see any of this, it’s all told to us, but it doesn’t make her sound likeable and that isn’t he kind of person I’d want representing any marginalized group.

Looking at the covey and saying they’re Romani because they’re musicians is also an outdated racist stereotype. The Hunger Games isn’t the Hunchback of Notre Dame that was published in 1831. While Romani people do have musicians and they do tend to play music where they settle, one of their defining features is their language, not their music. It’s complicated to place the covey because they really aren’t one concept of a group and I don’t think Collins should have ever boiled them down to a specific group like she tried to do.

All of the covey characters that we get introduced to are very similar to each other because I don’t think Collins was actually trying to convey them as people, rather as concepts and especially as ways to strip originality from her own books. Lucy Gray being the creator of the hanging tree song is the biggest offender to me; we couldn’t let something stand on its own and imagine that it was probably a war song during the first rebellion against the capital and that was why Katniss’ mom had such a quick and negative reaction to her child singing it at a young age. It could have been a song that insights rebellion (like it was shown to be in Mockinjay), instead of just a song that was performed once and only in front of peacekeepers.

Collins then tired to explain that away with Lenore singing forbidden songs in the town square, including hanging tree, in front of an audience of people. It’s a retcon of a retcon and that’s wild to me.

I dislike the covey, yes, because they’re poorly done and their existence is so shoehorned into the books to try and make them feel like the most important people in the whole series without having any real meaningful impact on the og novels and it’s just annoying. Not to mention they completely disappear by the 74th games so their existence doesn’t have any true impact on the story outside of: the songs Katniss sings aren’t forbidden rebellion anthems by the capital which was why they’d been powerful. Instead they’re just something that made Snow upset personally once, and Haymitch gets to be eternally enslaved to a dead child because all of his reasons for rebelling were actually Lenore’s and not his own hatred of the capital.

Anyone that wants to send me a question and get one of my mini essays in response you’re welcome to do so. I’m happy to share my opinions if people want to use me as a resource to bounce their own ideas off of.

[war-in-time]

Curious on your opinion and analysis about the fact that we find out Haymitch wasn’t actually reaped (and the theory of the reapings being rigged in general)

I honestly hated the fact that Haymitch wasn’t properly reaped according to sotr. It gives lazy writing. The only reaping we’ve been shown that actually occurred like it’s meant to be held was in the first book with Prim and Peeta being reaped, Katniss volunteering. I think if a reaping were to happen properly like that again—only without any volunteers to make it more interesting—it would actually be very boring to read.

I’m not going to say that having someone else be picked and they get killed trying to make a run for it isn’t possible, but I think peacekeepers during a reaping would more then likely have non-lethal weapons on them like stun guns. Isn’t that exactly what the capital would want? To place a tribute into the arena that tried to make a run for it to remind everyone in Panem that they can’t escape the hunger games?

Haymitch just getting picked because he tried to interfere with said peacekeeper is so… unbelievable. Not necessarily the action of him getting reaped like that either, but Haymitch, being drunk very often in the og trilogy just never once blurted out how he was reaped for punching a peacekeeper while drunk? If Collins did want to ‘subvert expectations’ for Haymitch’s reaping she could have written that someone else was picked, they made a run for it, got executed, and just as Haymitch though he was safe for another year Drusilla reaches into the bowl again and pulls out his name. It keeps the tension while actually making it feel more organic and more tragic. Truthfully Haymitch getting reaped off of sheer bad luck, the fifth name picked, over making stupid decisions hurts so much more and it’s not what we got.

I do know the theory of the reaping’s being rigged and it’s technically not a theory since Collins tried to present Lucy Gray being reaped exactly like that in the 10th games. Since that one is ‘canon’ we can’t outright deny that it hasn’t happened at least once, but by all means it makes no sense. Outside of the 25th hunger games, we know the capital is the body that controls the reaping, not the districts, so there is real plausible doubt that a mayor with a grudge against a little girl would somehow rig the reaping instead of just having her whipped or executed in front of the district?

How would rigging the reaping work if they were going to do so? Send a bunch of money to whoever’s in charge of making the slips (which is most likely a computer, nobody is writing out a few hundred names on pieces of paper manually) or somehow reprogram the system that keeps track of all the children in a district to only print one name?

The capital surely isn’t rigging any reapings because they don’t care which kids they get as long as they get two per district, if they cared that much they wouldn’t allow volunteers. If the capital was rigging games I think it would have at least been mentioned once in catching fire or mockingjay, but it wasn’t. The idea for rigging games came as an afterthought because like I said how entertaining would a reaping actually be if Collins didn’t add action into it? I have a lot of problems with bosas, adding the concept of a reaping being rigged is one of them. Well and truly if the capital is the sole body controlling all the names in the bowls, I see very little chances for anything being meddled with, because again; the capital doesn’t care who becomes their tributes.