any thoughts on the excerpt from the hunger games prequel?
Predictably, I’m going to say, “I’m very tired of people thinking that they need to, or can, explain/justify/humanize their fascist villain’s fascism. Here’s the backstory to every fascist, fictional and real: they want power, and they have the privilege, so they use their privilege to solidify the power they already have and eliminate any potential opponents for future power.” That’s it.
It’s not interesting anymore, and – what disappoints me with the THG prequel in particular, because THG itself was so timely and salient – it’s not a story that we need to hear again right now.
The last four years have been a barrage of “watch this dapper neo-nazi go grocery shopping in his swastika armband and pepe the frog pin and bad haircut” stories, again, but in the fictional realm and the fucking real newsmedia.
I don’t fucking care why Coriolanus Snow ~became Snow.~
(I mean, for one thing, it’s because he was an archetype and not really a character in THG, in which SC had an actual point to make, and like, he’s a goddamn white cishet male tyrant whose name is Snow [as in white, like, it’s in the name].) Like, realistically, he became Snow because the archetype of Power is what Katniss’ story needed to fight against, and Snow is nothing but that archetype of toxic, masculine, white supremacist, classist, misogynist, kyriarchal power. SC had Coriolanus Snow Be Coriolanus Snow because she was telling a story about the evils of Being Coriolanus Snow through the heroism and bravery of Katniss, his opposite in every way except, ostensibly, being hetero (and even that’s arguable with aro/ace-readings of Katniss.)
So, like, do I think that she’s writing about Snow as the main character now to totally swap her POV and argue that he’s the hero? No, I don’t. But I also think it’s always going to be a less effective choice to tell your story through the POV of a character who, A, we know won’t learn anything from his experience mentoring a D12 girl because he fucking becomes Snow in another 64 years, and he spends those 64 years using his Power to murder deeply, deeply vulnerable and oppressed children.
And on the flip side, if this is SC setting up a retcon backstory where The Mockingjay Rebellion Happens Because Coriolanus Snow Played The Long Con And Set It Up Since Long Before Katniss Was Born, then that’s fucking racist and misogynist and classist, too, because it’s effectively removing the agency and autonomy of every character who actually rebelled in the THG trilogy, so I FUCKING HOPE that it’s not going to go that direction. If Snow is, effectively, sanctioning the rebellion or planting seeds for its fruition, then it isn’t a rebellion against Power at all, and the THG universe will be asserting that One Lone White Cishet Man Is The True Savior, HAHA, You Thought It Was A Brown Girl?! and like… clearly that’s fucking horrific and disgusting. And again, not a story we need right now. (Or, like, in the last 6,000 years.)
I’m sure someone will go snark on anon somewhere about how it makes me unintelligent and boring and over-the-top to say that, and if I were writing a companion book to the prequel, then I’d force myself to draw out the lines of metatext enough to care, but like… I do not ever care why someone chooses to kill children, A, and B, I’m just sick to fucking death of either Dudes Who Look Like Draco or Dudes Who Look Like Snape getting woobified despite being mass-murdering dildos.
IF SC managed to write Snow’s POV in a way that doesn’t serve to humanize him or attempt to justify his racism, sexism, classism, and boner for child-murder and the child sex trade (LET US NOT FORGET FINNICK, HERE, TOO) then – okay. But writing entirely from within a character’s mind and perspective and not having it possible, at all, to come across to at least a segment of readers as justification and truth – see Nabokov’s attempt with making it very clear that Humbert Humbert is a delusional, disgusting scumbag with every single line of Lolita and how culture took THAT book – is… arguably impossible??? Like, I don’t think it matters how overt SC is with Snow’s cronies and mentors, or whatever, being corrupt bungholes, because there will be corrupt bungholes who read it and find themselves validated on the page. (Also, there are people who think THG is about the virtues of libertarianism, so like, people can twist a text to be about anything, apparently.)
I WANT to be hopeful and optimistic, but the opening of the EW article doesn’t give me a lot of good vibes –
“[Snow is] a villain — a manipulative tyrant, a brutal killer. Those were Katniss Everdeen’s novels, after all, and Snow’s dictatorial presidency stood as the main antagonist to her resistance-underdog story. But what if there was more to him than we knew? What if he could be — crazy as it may sound — a hero?”
NO, HE’S NOT. HE SPENT 64 YEARS MANIPULATING FOOD DESERTS SO THAT HE COULD MURDER IMPOVERISHED, OPPRESSED, STARVING, BROWN, AND BLACK CHILDREN.
