thg meta /// the hunger games series * the ballad of songbirds & snakes * sunrise on the reaping /// thank you all to original owner - please don't delete your post /// analysis, discussion, opinion, critiques, essay, comment, art, some humor. ///
so Maysilee's pin was the mockingjay, as we know, but Merrilee's was a canary.
which she then lost down a well.
hmmmmm...what's another example of a canary being lowered into an dark, inescapable shaft? particularly regarding the specialty of District 12?
the canary in the coal mine.
coal miners in the old days would bring a canary with them in a cage. if the canary grew sick or died in the mines, it was an indication that there was carbon monoxide or some other poisonous fumes in the tunnel, and so the miners knew to get out of the tunnel. the canary in the coal mine was, in other words, a sign of danger.
now I'm losing the metaphor a bit because I can't really think of a character that I would assign to the "canary" ā most likely Rue (because Katniss constantly describes her as a "little bird" and "birdlike") but there's also Maysilee (who ostensibly recognized the cruelty of the Capitol long before Haymitch did) or even Lucy Gray (the "songbird," the first of District 12's Victors, and the one who accidentally kickstarted the entire system of the Hunger Games as we encounter it from Katniss' perspective by driving Snow to the point of paranoid insanity)
In Mockingjay, Katnissās squad was called squad 451. Like the book Fahrenheit 451Ā°.
Plutarch Heaveansbee, the man who had a huge ass library, and libraries were considered RARE, named them after a book about censorship.
Plutarch is such an interesting character, the fact that he was trying to stop the games for at LEAST 25 years. And he was so devoted it makes you wonder why he even cared.
No. No she doesn't. A character who explicitly appears in the narrative cannot haunt the narrative.
The character who *actually* haunts The Hunger Games's narrative is Crassus Xanthos Snow.
He stole the idea for the games from Highbottom and presented it to Gaul. He is the creator of The Hunger Games: an event that occurs over 75 consecutive years and takes thousands of lives. (A likely reason why Gaul is so drawn to Snow and thus grooms him to be her little pet).
He is a contributing factor in Snow's character development, from the Grandma'am's pressure to Tigris's final remarks. ("Snow Lands On Top" is not a saying that Coriolanus came up with on his own).
Finally, it is his fucking handkerchief that 1) saves Lucy Gray from the snakes and 2) condemns Snow to District 12 which kills both Sejanus and Lucy Gray.
Okay so this might already be a well known thing but I only just connected the dots.
Basically, when roses are just on the edge of beginning to mold because they've been stored without being tried properly, a condensation forms on the container (in my case a glass jar) and when you open it, it smells incredibly sickly and sweet.
"There's a rose in President Snow's lapel, which at least suggests a source of the flower perfume, but it must be genetically enhanced, because no real rose reeks like that."
We see sweetness mentioned around Snow, with an almost absurd tone. His character is surrounded by things deemed as 'pure' and 'sweet'. The colour white, the mention of his granddaughter from Johanna, sugar, and (of course) the roses.
"President Snow pours tea for both of us and fills his with cream and sugar."
However, Katniss isn't fooled. She finds the perfume's scent so 'cloying' and 'artificial' that it makes her gag - even from the presence of just the one rose.
"My nose twitches. It's the smell. Cloying and artificial."
"When I begin to gag at the stench, I back away and clear out."
She also takes notice of the fact that his breath smells like blood, almost as if Snow himself is rotting from the inside out.
The sickly rose scent is generally regarded as his attempt to cover up the smell of blood. Katniss almost immediately seeing through this is so important because it allows us as readers to see through it and recognise that almost everything about him is artificial.
Although, I really like how the connection between the perfumed scent and the roses works because, as I mentioned above, roses smell disgustingly sweet when they're just about to rot.
Snow, the entire time, was just about to rot.
Katniss hated the perfume because (from her perspective) he was already rotten.
"The smell of blood... it was on his breath."
Later on in the series, Finnick reveals that Snow often drinks poison in order to poison and kill others. This we generally know to be the reason for his coughing up blood. Katniss notices his sickly state in the greenhouse, which I think is particularly interesting because (if I'm correct) previous physical descriptions of him remained snake-like or plastic. With Katniss taking particular notice of his 'puffy' or 'stretched out' lips. But Katniss notes that:
"In the bright light, his skin's a pale, sickly green."
In that light specifically, now that he is chained to the seat and vulnerable, only then does he truly look like a sick old man. Throughout the series, it is difficult (in my opinion) to view him as a human being - particularly furthered by ballad's third-person narrative. So in this moment, I feel he is particularly humanised - especially since he is informing Katniss of who really killed Primrose.
So wealthiest, most influential families in One, Two and Four ā the Plinths who didnāt make it out, so to speak ā must have a huge hand in the career training programs, right?
Many of these families would have children. Sure, their chances of being reaped are low if they donāt take out tesserae, and sure, maybe you can try to bribe Capitol officials to keep their names out of the reaping. But having a guarantee that someone else will volunteer in their place? Thatās the surest chance youāre going to get.
So you fund the local schoolās athletics programs, sweet-talk your districtās military youth group into adding Games-specific training to their curriculum, or whatever other idea you and your peers have come up with to get trained kids consistently volunteering for the Games.
And in doing so you manage both the gratitude of your district ā whose children maybe you feed or house or pay as an incentive to enter training, who are protected completely from the reapings if they donāt, who are free to take out any tesserae they need without increasing their risk of entering the Games ā and of the Capitol, who get better entertainment in their increasingly popular sporting event. For you, itās a win-win-win.
And if that win comes at the cost of grooming children of your district to lay down their lives (or to accept what happens to them after they win)ā¦ well, thatās just the price to pay, right? At least theyāve got a better chance of survival than the kids they volunteer for. So you tell yourself a deal with the Devil is better than a slaughter of random chance.
So Iām watching the new season of Percy Jackson and there is a chariot race. And my mind immediately went to THG! Suzanne took a lot of inspo from the Greeks and Romans so I had to do research on chariot races. Hereās what I found about racing in Ancient Rome:
Winners were celebrated and well paid for their victories, regardless of status, and the best could earn more than the wealthiest lawyers and senators
Spectators generally chose to support a single team, and identify themselves with its fortunes. Private betting on the races raised large sums for the teams, driverā¦Generous imperial subsidies of "bread and circuses" kept the Roman masses fed, entertained and distracted.
Bread and circus is also known as āPanem et circensesā
the difference between Haymitch and Katniss's narration is so funny. Haymitch would give us everyone's social security number if he knew them, while Katniss wouldn't even tell us her mom's name.
i think outside of showing their personalities, this difference does a good job highlighting how the capital has pillaged district 12 in the 25 years in the middle of these books.
while haymitch is obviously suffering under the brunt of the capital he is able to find some happiness in his family and friends and his close knit community. on the other hand those close knit bonds are weaker by the time katniss comes around. (not to say people didnāt care but their constant fight for survival is beating out their compassion).
The capital isnāt just starving district 12, it is also stealing its soul.
my biggest pet peeve is people thinking district one is rich. they make the luxury items, they dont get to keep them, like how district 11 doesnt get to keep the food they harvest. realistically its closer to what we consider middle class with the factories really being sweatshops
Something something about would like to see the Sunrise on the Reaping movie, but the way they had the movie deal signed and decided it was happening before the book even being released rubs me the wrong way. It hasn't even been published for a full year yet and already we have a movie trailer. Something something taking the story with a deeper meaning about the horrors being committed (and then erased) by the elite controlling the narrative for power and to maintain their status. And the impression it gives that this is nothing more than a teen/YA dystopian franchise with a surface level story by being *immediately* turned into a movie purely for financial gain of the film industry.
Romanticizing the horrors for financial gain: Emphasis on the love triangle in the hunger games trilogy movies, Young snow and the tease of romance with Lucy Grey being a focus in the ballad of snakes and songbirds film. How will Sunrise on the Reaping be romanticized.
Anyways, all that to say that the way the existence of this film (so soon, at least) makes me not want to see it. I stand by my principles and this rubs me the wrong way.
Effieās purpose in THG is to illustrate that you are still a perpetuator and not absolved from responsibility if you do nothing but go along with an oppressive system but no one seems ready for that conversation.
Okay, so I know based on TBOSAS and THG that Panem still has dollars (referred to as such in the book) and coins (The term pennies and coins is used). So I assume US currency has influenced, and Panem could be using something similar.
Although, a lot of countries refer to their currency as a dollar, so it could (and most likely) be a different currency with just similar terms? If this is the case (which I would think so) has there been any sort of discussion or thought of conversion rates of items/food.
I know that Tessarae is a form of currency but thats more of a system used to get rations and in return, your name is put extra in the reaping.
Likewise, scrip is also a currency used, but it's described as currency the miners with. It's not given, it's worked for, and it's its own system, which is weird????
I'd love people's thoughts on this, I love trying to flesh out Panem as a state/nation.
As a side note, this entire ramble was basically to ask a stupid question of whether or not y'all think 'Bucks' is still used as a term by Panem. I think so, but it's also just slang and could've been changed since languages evolve over time. (Which is a whole other topic we could talk about)
Once again, the connection that Haymitch and Katniss share comes from love, from compassion, and from the fierce will to make the deaths of those they loved count. They both take loveāand the loss of itāas a driving force to oppose the Capitol, because in Panem, to own your grief and let it guide you toward the right thing is rebellion. It is rebellion to acknowledge the lives that were so violently taken and to honor them by holding the Capitol accountable, by making them feel shame, by showing them that every drop of blood they spill matters.
Haymitch and Katniss are emotionally driven rebels with so much to lose, and yet they keep choosing to love, choosing to offer their lives over and over again. Katniss is really himjust luckier.
it's hilarious to me that snow's fatal flaw was believing everybody is as selfish and horrible and manipulative as he is, and his downfall is because of two teenagers who, no matter how hard he tried to force them into the decisions he would've made, were so unhinged about each other none of his plans to make them hate/distrust/kill each other worked and that is just so wonderfully delightfully poetic to me
truly every character in the hunger games series is a metaphor. you could have peeta just being katniss' feelings of hope and her choice to move forward and put some other boy to be the tribute cause the plot demands it
lucy gray is the personification of the trilogy, she is everything that happened there. we don't need to find out what happened to her physically, we already have the answer. the trilogy tells us her fate.
Even though I enjoyed SOTR, I think it would have been more compelling if Maysilee had been the tribute trying to rebel instead of Haymitch. She was literally the canary in the coal-mine whose voice was taken away. That was a connection already made back in Catching Fire, when it was established she had a pet canary, and when Katniss explains how theyāre used as warning signals to miners to alert them of danger. Given sheās so filled with anger and vitriol towards the Capitol it would make sense that she would agree to any rebellious plan offered up. And it would be a better/more interesting reason for the game makers killing her off with the mutts.
Plus I think it would be more interesting to explore this story if the narrator wasnāt the rebellious figure for once. We already got that with Katniss, but what would it look like from an outsiderās point of view? What would Haymitch, an ordinary, not-traumatized teenage boy think of what he was seeing? The small signs of something being hidden from him by his mentors and fellow tribute. Would he figure out what was going on? Would he not realize it until the end? I would really love to read a story from that perspective.
And it could add a whole new layer to the force field thing, since he was mentored by Wiress (and Beetee in a way as well) and they are the ones who revealed the trick of the force field to Katniss in prep for the third quarter quell. I really wish that part of the book hadnāt been changed from how it was perceived in Catching Fire. While I love how Haymitchās personality was shown to be different than what we perceived from the recordings of his games, changing how the force field saved his life seemed pointless to me and really just made it far less interesting in my opinion.
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